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THE 
CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


A HISTORY OF THE 
“DEVOTIO MODERNA” 


BY 


ALBERT HYMA 


THE REFORMED PRESS 
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 
MCMXXIV 


Copyrighted by 
Eerdmans-Sevensma Co. 
Grand Rapids, Mich. 
1924 


FREERACH 


In this book I have sought to tell the story of a great 
religious movement named “Devotio Moderna’, or 
“Christian Renaissance”. Early in the year 1917 my 
attention was called to this movement and in particular to 
the Brethren of the Common Life by Professor Leonard 
Ch. Van Noppen of Columbia University. As literary 
representative of the “Board of the Queen Wilhelmina 
Lectureship, Columbia University”, he not only gave me 
much valuable information, but also enabled me to secure 
financial assistance from the board he represented. 
Among the members of this board were Professor G. 
Kalff, of the University of Leiden; J. Heldring, of 
Heldring and Pierson, Bankers, the Hague; J. W. Yzer- 
man, President of the Royal Netherland Geographical 
Society at Amsterdam; Wouter Nijhoff, President of the 
Dutch Publishers’ Association;.and Dr. H. J. Kiewiet 
de Jonge, President of the General Dutch Alliance. To 
these gentlemen, therefore, | wish to express my thanks, 
both for their willingness to support an unknown Amer- 
ican student, and for the way in which they allowed him 
to carry on his research work in various foreign countries. 
Consul Jacob Steketee and Mrs. H. Hulst of Grand 
Rapids, Michigan, who are their representatives in 
Michigan, also deserve my gratitude. However, I feel 
just as greatly indebted to the Graduate Council of the 
University of Michigan for enabling me to devote one 
’ wholes year exclusively to research work, before going 
abroad. 

In Holland I received many helpful suggestions from 
Professor A. Eekhof, Leiden; Professor W. J. Kithler, 


vi PREFACE 


Amsterdam; and Professor J. Lindeboom, Groningen. 
Many other scholars, and several librarians, and archivists 
in Holland contributed to make this book possible. I had 
delightful visits with Dr. K. Loffler, librarian at Cologne; 
Dr. A. Bomer, librarian at Munster (University Library) ; 
Professor L. Schmitz-Kallenberg, Minster; Mgr. W. E. 
Schwarz, “Kammerherr” of the pope, Munster; and Dr. 
Paul Hagen, Liitbeck. Besides, I am also greatly indebted 
to librarians and archivists of other libraries and archives 
where I conducted researches, as at Dusseldorf, Berlin, 
Nuremberg, Munich, Brussels, Liege, Vienna, Innsbruck, 
Rome, Paris, and London. 

Special mention must be made here of the painstaking 
labors of Dr. R. Flatscher, of the University Library at 
Innsbruck. He copied several medieval writings for me; 
without his work the composition of this book would 
have been greatly delayed. Professor A. Eekhof of 
Leiden, as one of the editors of the ‘‘Nederlandsch 
Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis’’, helped revise one article 
for me, which appeared in that magazine: and a year | 
later another one was accepted. I also felt greatly en- 
couraged by the response made by Dr. J. de Jong, of the 
Episcopal Seminary at Driebergen in Holland, who is 
editor of the “Archief voor de Geschiedenis van het 
Aartsbisdom Utrecht”, a Roman Catholic periodical. He 
immediately accepted a series of articles on Gerard Groote 
and Gerard Zerbolt, which meant that the present volume 
could appear in print sooner than had been anticipated. By 
far the greatest debt I owe is to Professor E. W. Dow 
of the University of Michigan. His ripe experience as 
scholar and teacher, his sane judgment, his prudence and 
moderation, are all alike reflected on almost every page 
of this book. 


it 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 





INTRODUCTION 


The Yssel valley and its environment in the fifteenth 
century, 2. — The home of a great religious movement : 
the ‘“‘Devotio Moderna’, 3. — Previous movements and 
general conditions in Europe, 3. — A reform needed, 
a great reformer lacking, 4. — Groote inaugurates a 
reform which turns into the ‘‘Devotio Moderna’’, or 
Christian Renaissance, 5. — It is a reform both in 
church and school, 5. — The position of the Yssel 
valley may account for this, 6. — The character of the 
whole movement described, 6. 





CHAPTER I 
GERARD GROOTE 


I. —Groote’s Life (1340-1384). — Studies at Deven- 
ter, Aachen, Cologne, Paris, and Prague, 9. — 
Negotiates with the papal court at Avignon for his 
native city, 9. — His life at Cologne, 9. — His 
conversion in 1374, 10. — Cedes the use of his house 
to some poor women, and gives up his two prebends, 
11. — Spends two years in a monastery, 12. — 
Visits Ruysbroeck, 12. — In 1379 begins to preach, 
12. — Followed by a select number of disciples, 14. 
— In 1383 is commanded to stop preaching, 15. — 
Now turns his attention to education and the trans- 
lation of Psalms and hymns, 16. — His death in 
1384,-175. + 


vii 


Vill 


II. 


II. 


IV. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


—Groote as Theologian and Philosopher.—Authors 
quoted by him, 17. —- Owes much also to Ruys- 
broeck, 17. — His philosophy, 19. — The doctrine 


of original sin, 19. — The kingdoms of heaven and 
hell within each human being, 20. — Groote is a 
mystic, 20. — Love supreme, 22. — Wants a prac- 


tical, personal religion, 23. — Abhors indolence, 23. 
— Preaches the imitation of Christ, 24. 


—Groote as Reformer. — Explains the word — 
“religio”’, 25. — His views on monasticism: recom- 
mends the monastery to those best fit for the 
monastic life, but does not consider this life superior 
to the life “in the world’, 26. —- Supports the 
universally accepted doctrines of the Church, 27. — 
Thinks that in the realm of morals the Church is 
not supreme, and severely reproaches the ‘“Phari- 
sees’ of his time, 28. — Says the Church is in a 
dreadful condition, 28. —- His views on the sacra- 
ments: everything depends on the attitude of the 
partaker, 29. — The task of the priest exceedingly 
difficult, 30. — Attacks “heretics”, 30. — Dislikes 
the mendicants for their indolence, 31. — But values 
the blessings poverty bring, 32. — Advises the clergy 
not to marry, if they wish to serve God with all their 
heart; urges his disciples to marry devout women, 
33. — By no means a pessimist: is always happy in 
the Lord, for he often feels the presence of God 
within him, 33. — The greatest virtue is humility, 
34. — One should offer oneself to God, 35. 


—Groote as Educator. — Conclusion. — Groote 
loves books, 35. — Becomes a friend of school boys — 
and teachers, 36. — Instructs John Cele to reform 


the school at Zwolle, 36. — Considered by con- 


-TABLE OF CONTENTS ix 


temporaries as the inaugurator of the “Devotio 
Moderna”, 37. — This movement became a tremen- 
dous force, 39. 





CHAPTER II 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


INTRODUCTION. 


ie 


II. 


Ill. 


IV. 


—Groote is the Founder of the Brotherhood of the 
Common Life. — In 1374 asks a few poor women 
to live the common life in his house, 41. — They 
the first Sisters of the Common Life, 43. — At 
Deventer he has twelve disciples, 43, — One of these 
is Florentius Radewijns, who suggests that they also 
lead the common life, 44. — Groote hesitates, but 
finally promises to assist and protect them against 
the mendicant monks, 45. 


—Groote is the Founder of Windesherm. — On 
August 20, 1384, is dying, 46. — His disciples very 
sad, for they will be left without a leader, 46. — He 
tells them not to be dismayed, 46. — Some of them 
must build a monastery, 46. — The others will re- 
main at Deventer, 49. — Appoints Radewijns as 
their new leader, 49. 


—Florentius Radewijns (1350-1400). — A friend 
of the sick and afflicted, 49. —- Wishes to imitate 
Christ, 51. — Also a famous preacher, 51. — Has a 
magnetic personality, 53. — His views analyzed: 
man a pilgrim on earth, and must try to return 
home ; he must root up vice and acquire virtue, 54. 


—The Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer 
(1384-1398). — The common life introduced, 59. 


VI. 


VII. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


— The first rector appointed, 60. — The ‘House 
of Florentius”’ built, 60. — The “Nova Domus”, 60. 
— The life of the brothers described by Badius 
Ascensius, 61. — Further particulars, 62. — The 
brothers attacked by the mendicants, 63. — Another 
enemy: the pestilence of 1398, 64. — The crisis 
comes and passes, 65. 


—Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen (1367-1398). — His 
education, 66. — A born student, an authority on ~ 
Canon Law, 67. — Asks various scholars to inves- 
tigate the merits of the common life, 67. — Writes 
the “Treatise on the Common Life’’, 67. —- Shows 
that the common life is permissible, 68. — Also that 
laymen may read the Bible in the vernacular, 72. — 
Discusses the need of obedience, confession, and 
rules, 76. — His theological views, as expressed in 
his “Spiritual Ascensions’’: original sin; the three 
descents and the three ascents, or the various vices 
and their remedies, 79. 5 


—The Monastery of Windesheim and the Convent 
of Diepenveen (1386-1413). — The first building 
erected in 1386-1387, 82. — The dedication on 
Oct. 17, 1387, 84. — John Vos of Heusden, 85. — 
The sisters at Deventer decide to build a convent, 86. 
— John Brinckerinck, 87. — They select a plot of 
mucky soil near Diepenveen, where the brick con- 
vent is built, 88. 


—The Brethren of the Common Life and the School 
at Zwolle (1374-1417). — Groote advises three of 
his followers at Zwolle to live the common life, 89. 
— The second, or real brethren-house is founded, 
90. — John Cele and his school : introduces a reform 
in the method of teaching the Bible, by cooperating 


If. 


Iil. 


iI ps 


TABLE OF CONTENTS xi 


with the brethren, by instituting a division of the 
school into eight classes, by treating the pupils ac- 
cording to the golden rule of Christ, by asking them 
to make “rapiaria”, or excerpt-books, 92. — Con- 
clusion, 97. 





CHAPTER III 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 


—The Brethren at Deventer (1398-1520). — The 
two last years of Radewijns, 99. — Amilius van 
Buren, his successor, compared with Solomon, 99. 
— John of Haarlem, 100. — Godfried Toorn, 100. 
— Egbert ter Beek, 101. — Brugman, 103. — The 
various buildings at Deventer, 104. 


~—The Brethren at Zwolle (1410-1520). — Theo- 


dore of Herxen: appointed rector in 1410, 104. — 
Becomes a great educator and also a famous preach- 
er, 106. — His experiences with Liefard and Henso, 
107. — Albert Paep of Calcar, his successor, 108. 
— The buildings at Zwolle, 109. 


—The Houses founded by the Brethren of Deventer 
and Zwolle. — Amersfoort and Delft, 110. — The 
other houses in the Northern Low Countries, 110. 
— Those in Germany, 111. — Those in the Southern 
Low Countries, 111. — The sister-houses, 112. — 


Some houses not prosperous, 112, — The house 
at Culm in Poland, 113. — Many sisters become 
nuns, 114. 


—General Characteristics —The aim of the brethren 
to serve God and induce their neighbors to. seek 
salvation and purity of heart, the ,final end of 


xii 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


religion, 115. — Various regulations, 116. — The 
informal Bible talks and discussions, 117. — Other 
regulations, 119. — The brethren may be called 
practical mystics, 120. 


—The Brethren as Educators. — Cele Groote’s 
successor as educator, 122. — Schools conducted by 
the brethren themselves, 123. — The school at 


Zwolle, 124.—The school at Deventer under Hegius, 
125. — The successors of Hegius, 129. — Ortwin 
Gratius and the “Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum”, 
129. — The school at Schlettstadt, 130. — The 
school at Miinster, 132. — Conclusion, 134. 





CHARTER han 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 


BE 


LOWE, 


—Monasteries and Convents founded by Windes- 
heim. — The first monastery is founded by the men 
of Deventer and Windesheim, 136. — They also 
have common interests in the next two, 137. — The 
Congregation of Windesheim organized in 1395, 138. 
— It incorporates the chapters of Groenendaal and 
Neuss, and many other monasteries, 138. — The 
reform at Frenswegen, 140. — John Busch, 142. 


—Reforms by Diepenveen. — Diepenveen founds 
and reforms many sister-houses and convents, 145. 
— The reform at Hilwartshausen, 147. 


—General Characteristics—The lives of the monks 
and nuns differ little from those of the brethren and 
sisters at Deventer, 152. — Literary work of the 
monks, 153. — Correction of the Vulgate and the 
Fathers, 155. — General influence, 156. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii 
CHAPTER V 
THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 


INTRODUCTION. 


I. 


Hf, 


III. 


IV. 


—Analysis of the work. — The book appeals to all 
classes of men and women in all countries, 158, — 


Man a pilgrim, 159. — The doctrine of original sin, 
160. — The uprooting of vices, 160. — The acquisi- 
tion of virtue, 161. — The cultivation of love, 163. 


— The kingdom of heaven within, 163. — Though 
man is depraved, he may rise with the help of Grace: 
not totally depraved, 164. — Faith and salvation, 
165. — The value of good works, 165. 


—Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471). — Kempen his 


native town, 166. — Arrives at Deventer in 1392, 
166. — Radewijns becomes his friend and finds a 
home for him, 166. — Thomas spends one year with 
the brethren, 167. — Leaves for the monastery of 


Mount St. Agnes in 1399, 169. — Ordained priest 
in 1412 or 1413, 170. — Spends nearly all his 
remaining years in the same monastery, copying and 
writing various books, 170. 


—The “Rapiaria”’ and “Devota Exercitia” made at 
Deventer. — The brethren believe that, even though 
Christ died for them, they must try to uproot vice 
and acquire virtue : must imitate Christ, 171. — Why 
the year 1398 happened to be such a memorable one 
and why it. gave Thomas an opportunity to gather 
the material for the ‘‘Imitation’, 171. 

—The “Imitation” was partly edited and partly 
composed by Thomas 4 Kempis. — No copy can be 
found dated before 1415, 177. — The manuscripts 
containing the four books, 178.— The first complete 


xiv 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


copies were all written in the monasteries of the 
Windesheim Congregation and the brethren-houses, 
178. — The best informed contemporary witnesses 
say Thomas is the author, 179. — Gerson cannot 
have written it, 180. — The supporters of Gersen 
have invented unsatisfactory theories, 181. — Is 
Thomas really the author? 182. — The latest dis- 
coveries at Liibeck show that he copied that part of 
the “Imitation” which caused its fame and composed 
the rest himself, 183. 





CHAPTER: V1 


WESSEL GANSFORT 
INTRODUCTION. 
I. —Gansfort’s Life (1419-1489). — His early life 


Ti 


at Groningen, 191. — Spends seventeen years at 
Zwolle, 192. — Often visits the monks at Mount St. 
Agnes, 194. — Matriculates at Cologne, and also 
visits Paris and Heidelberg, then returns to Zwolle 
in 1458, 195. — From 1458-1469 lives at Paris, 196. 
— In 1469 visits Rome, 197. — Returns to Paris in 
1470, 197. — Visits Rome, Florence, and Venice, 
199. — Impressions received at the universities and 
among the higher clergy, 200. — From 1475-1489 
remains in the Netherlands, first chiefly at Zwolle 
and Mount St. Agnes, later at Adwert and Gron- 
ingen, 202. 


—Gansfort as Theologian and Philosopher. — In- 
sists on the necessity of a thorough education, 204. 
— His learning, 206. — Prefers Plato to Aristotle, 
207. — Is a mystic, 208. — His view on purgatory, 
208. — On the Eucharist, 209. — On predestination 


TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 


and justification by faith, 210. — On confession 
and penance, 213. — On the pope’s power, 213. 


III. —Gansfort and Luther. — Gansfort remained little 
known because he loved privacy, 217. — Luther says 
Gansfort’s views are nearly identical with his, 218.— 
True from his standpoint, 219. — Luther owes much 
to the brethren and their friends, 220. — Has very 
much in common with Gansfort, 221. 


IV. —Gansfort and Erasmus. — Deventer and Zwolle 
the centres of the Christian Renaissance, not Ad- 
wert, 227. — Gansfort and Erasmus both indebted 
to the brethren for most of their theological views, 
227. — Erasmus not Colet’s pupil, but rather a 
follower of Gansfort, 228. — His toleration he im- 
bibed from Gansfort, 230. 





: CHAPTER VII 
THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 


INTRODUCTION. 


I. —John Standonck and the College of Montaigu. — 
Standonck educated by the brethren at Gouda, 236. 
— Studies at Louvain and Paris, 238. — In 1483 
recéives direction of Montaigu, 238. — Preaches 
often, 238. — Meets De Paule, 239. — Becomes the 
leading reformer in France: the council at Tours, 
239. — Compared with Groote, 241. — Also founds 
a sort of brotherhood, 243. — Gets a dormitory for 
poor students, 243. — Expelled from France by the 
king, 245. — Goes to Southern Low Countries and 
establishes four other communities, 247. — Recalled 
to Paris, 248. — The constitution of Montaigu, 249. 





it; 


III. 


IV. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


—John Mombaer and the Monks of the Windes- 
heim Congregation in France. — The monastery of 
Chateau-Landon reformed, 251. — A reform, at- 
tempted at St. Victor, fails, 252. — Livry, Cysoing, 
and Melun reformed, 254. — The “Rosary of Spir- 
itual Exercises’? by Mombaer, 255. — He refers to 
Groote, 256. — Groote’s view on temptation and 
justification by faith, 257. — The work analyzed, | 
258. 


—The Origins of the Counter-Reformation. — 
General influence of the Christian Renaissance in 
France, 260. — Lefevre, the follower of Cusa and 
the friend of the brethren, 261. — Badius Ascensius, 
265. — Garcia of Cisneros, nephew of Cardinal 
Ximenes of Cisneros, 267. — Prints Zerbolt’s “Spir- 
itual Ascensions” at Montserrat in Spain, and pre- 
pares his “Spiritual Exercises” after the pattern of 
Zerbolt and Mombaer, 267. — Loyola at Montserrat 
and Manresa, 268. — The “Imitation” changes his — 
whole life, 269. — Composes his ‘Spiritual Exer- 
cises’”’ in imitation of Garcia, Mombaer, and Zerbolt, 
270. — Attends the lectures at Montaigu for one 
year, 271. — The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits model- 
ed after Standonck’s community and the Brother- 
hood of the Common Life, 272. 


—The Beginnings of Calvinism, — Lefévre’s Prot- 
estantism; based chiefly on the “Imitation”, and the 
works of Cusa, Gansfort, Ruysbroeck, and Zerbolt, 
276. — Calvin spends four years at Montaigu, 280. 
— Calvin’s Protestantism in 1533, merely a form of 
pious Catholicism, in part a fruit of the Christian 
Renaissance, 282.—In Alsace he becomes a ‘“‘Calvin- 
ist”, owing to the influence of Bucer, the follower 
of Rode, Hoen, and Gansfort, 284. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS xvii 


—The Schools of Sturm, Calvin, and the Jesuits. — 
Dringenberg brings the new method from Deventer 
to Schlettstadt, 288. — Sturm brings the one of the 
brethren of Liége to Strasbourg, 289.— This method 
discussed : the time of instruction shortened from 9 
to 3% hours a day, the mild punishments, the divi- 
sion into eight classes, the introduction of religious 
instruction, 291. — That of Calvin, 297. — The 
method used by the Jesuits resembles that of Sturm, 
as both are modeled after the same pattern: that 
of Cele, 298. 





CHAPTER VIII 
THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


INTRODUCTION. 


ts 


II. 


—The Essence of the Christian Renaissance. — 
Groote’s influence, 301. — Radewijns, the “com- 
forter’, 305. — Zerbolt, 307. — The influence of the 
“Tmitation’’, 308. — The works of Gansfort, 308. — 
The: essence of the whole movement undergoes a 
change, 308. 


—The Reformation in Germany is partly a product 
of the Christian Renaissance. — Luther indebted to 
the Christian Renaissance, 309. — The chief doctrine 
in all theology is that on original sin, and Luther 
derived his view on this doctrine in part from Zer- 
bolt, 310. — Luther follows Ailly, 311. — His view 
on indulgences brought nothing new: Gansfort had 
gone farther than Luther did in 1517, 312. — 
Luther’s view on monasticism does not noticeably 
differ from that of Gansfort, 314. — The doctrine 


XViii 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


of original sin more fully discussed, showing how 


_ Luther copied from Zerbolt, 315. — Luther and 


186% 


Gansfort both speak of the need of “‘cultivating the 
soil’, 319. — Both dislike the mendicants, 321. — - 
Both point to the superiority of the Gospel as com- 
pared with the Law, 321. — They have much more 
in common, and the alleged differences between their 
views are mostly invented by modern historians, 322. 


—Difference between the Christian Renaissance and 
the Reformation in Germany. — Love versus faith, 
326. — The Lutherans want a radical change, while 
the disciples of Groote propose a thorough-going 
reform; Erasmus expresses in this respect the spirit 
of the Christian Renaissance, 327. 


IV. —The Rise of Calvinism. — Hoen’s new doctrine 


on the Eucharist, 330.— Rode “‘converts’’ Oecolamp- 
adius, Bucer, and Zwingli, 332. — The churches are 
whitewashed: the Calvinists wish to return to the 
simple rites of the apostolic church, 334. — Pre- 
destination, 337. 


—Reforms in Education: The Great Revival of 
Learning. — Position of the Low Countries and 
their unrivaled prosperity, 339. — Groote and Cele, 
339. — Dringenberg and Murmellius, 340. — The 
Christian Renaissance helps produce the German 
Renaissance, 341. — Its influence in France and 
Switzerland, 341. 


VI. —Influence of the Christian Renaissance in England 


and beyond. — Catholicism, 343. — The Church of 
England and the Pilgrim Fathers, 345. — Puritan- 
ism, 346. — Presbyterianism, 347. — The Anabap- 
tists, 348. — General influence, 348. 


INTRODUCTION 


Somewhere among the wooded hills of Westphalia the 
little river known as Oude (or Old) Yssel takes its 
source. Descending through forest, heath, and meadow, 
on a northwestward course, it soon crosses the borders 
of Holland. Here both it and its neighbor the Rhine come 
up against the plateau Veluwe, or “Barren Meadow”, 
Confronted by this plateau, the Oude Yssel turns north- 
ward, and for the rest of its course is called simply 
Yssel; while the Rhine turns mostly westward, but dis- 
charges about a ninth of the water with which it enters 
Holland into the Zuiderzee by way of the Yssel. 

Once on a northward course, the river changes greatly 
in character. Slowly it winds past thriving cities — no 
longer an obscure little river, but a dignified stream 
whose quiet waters have nearly finished a long journey. 
The valley through which it now flows is very attractive, 
and is made doubly attractive by the striking contrast 
between the verdant meadows along the gentle waters 
and the dusty heaths of the Veluwe. Down in the valley 
are fertile banks with green pastures and smiling grain 
fields; on the plateau are stunted pines and barren sand- 
dunes. Below, the busy hand of man has planted willows 
and elms, has transformed the monotonous green into the 
radiant colors of flowers and shrubbery, and has built a 
multitude of homes; on the solitary heaths of the Veluwe 
few fragrant garden spots are found, few riversides, and 
few prosperous homes. 

I 


2 INTRODUCTION 


Four or five centuries ago, the contrast between the 
valley of the Yssel and its nearer environment was even 
stronger than now. For at that time the Veluwe, to the 
westward, was far more weird and forsaken. In spring and 
autumn, when the Rhine, Yssel, and Grebbe’* overflowed 
their banks, it would appear like a huge sand heap, devoid 
of human and animal life. On stormy days the wind 
would shriek among the tops of the lonely pines and the 
sand would swirl through the air. This spectacle was in 
itself sufficient to frighten away most invaders. East of 
the Yssel the landscape was almost equally desolate. 
Three different zones could be distinguished there, 
parallel with the river. First came the fertile strip of land 
bordering the stream; then the sand hills with their ex- 
tensive forests of oaks and pines, but not wholly without 
cultivation, particularly along the little brooks which had 
their source in the higher land farther to the east. The 
third zone was nothing but a waste of heaths, forests, 
and moors, showing but very few signs of human 
habitation’. . 

In this valley were situated the cities of Deventer, 
Zutphen, and Kampen, with Zwolle close by. Deventer 
was near the centre. Bordered on both sides by lonely 
expanses of heath and fen, Deventer was only to a rela- 
tively small degree subjected to the influence of interna- 
tional commerce. True, it was a prosperous town, but not 
a mighty port like Bruges or Antwerp; nor was it expos- 
ed so much to foreign influences as were the cities of 
Utrecht, Leiden, Amsterdam, and Dordrecht. Did the 
green pastures and the silent waters encircling the town 
perhaps foster in religious men of Deventer that spirit 
of mysticism which attracted a Thomas 4 Kempis and 
impelled him to leave his home at distant Kempen for 
the Yssel country? 


INTRODUCTION 3 


Great mystics have always loved to seek communion 
with God on the banks of quiet rivers, in forests and 
deserts. It was of such a country that David wrote: 
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh 
me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside 
the still waters. He restoreth my soul”. 

However this may be, the valley of the Yssel became 
the centre of a great religious movement,—the “Devotio 
Moderna’, or “New Devotion’, which developed the 
institution of the Brethren of the Common Life. It was 
in this valley that the “Imitation of Christ’’, next to the 
Bible the most widely read book in Europe, was composed. 
Here the “Spiritual A'scensions” was written by Gerard 
Zerbolt of Zutphen, as well as the “Rosary of Spiritual 
Exercises’ by John Mombaer or Mauburn, which two 
’ works later had a profound influence on Ignatius Loyola. 
Not only did Loyola use Zerbolt’s work as the pattern 
for his “Spiritual Exercises’, but Luther gave it the 
highest praise, as will appear. In this valley also Gerlach 
Peters composed his “Soliloquy”, which became the 
mystical text-book of the Port Royalists or Jansenists in 
France. Here John Cele lived, the first teacher to intro- 
duce the study of the Bible into the elementary schools. 
And here Gansfort and Erasmus acquired the ideals 
of reformation which they in turn passed on to Luther, 
Zwingli, and Calvin. 


The “New Devotion’ succeeded another religious 
movement, which had found its most perfect expression 
in the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, and Francis of 
Assisi; and in the cathedrals of Amiens, Rouen, Reims, 
Paris, Brussels, and Cologne. This movement had led to 
far-reaching monastic reforms; it had touched the hearts 
of the masses, inspiring them to rise to higher ideals 


Vas 


Coie Doe 


4 INTRODUCTION 


than the worship of self, and the amassing of material 
riches, honor, and fame among mortals. Learning had 
flourished in those days, and philosophy had been a living 
force. France had been the chief centre of this older 
movement; its monks had brought monastic reforms to 
the Low Countries and Germany; and its literature had 
served as a model; beautiful Gothic houses of worship 
had been erected, seldom if ever surpassed in grandeur 
and ennobling simplicity. 

But the thirteenth century had been followed by the © 
fourteenth, a century notable for its spirit of strife and 
discontent. National and dynastic wars had brought 
misery to Western Europe, and no country had suffered 
more than France. With the loss of economic strength 
came the gradual eclipse of France as a dominating force 
in the realms of learning, literature, and art*. And 
England was scarcely in a better position than its 
neighbor across the Channel*. The same can be said of- 
the German Empire, where many disintegrating forces 
were gradually undermining the prosperity of the people’. 
And what of the Church? Was it not growing from bad 
to worse as time went on, the more the clergy neglected 
their duties? Everywhere a decline in moral standards 
was noticeable, and everywhere a reform was badly 


_ needed. 


What Europe of the fourteenth century apparently 


_ lacked was some great Apostle, a man able to organize a 
lasting movement for reform; a man who could preach, 
write, and draw thousands of others behind him, who in 


their turn would preach, write, and found schools where 
the rising generation might learn the ideals of the great 
leader himself. It was the fortune of the Yssel valley to 
produce such a man; for Gerard Groote, the founder of 
the Brotherhood of the Common Life, not only preached 


INTRODUCTION 5 


and wrote, but induced thousands of others to follow his | 
example. He was the spiritual ancestor of Thomas a | 
Kempis, Wessel Gansfort, Hegius, and Erasmus; the) 
inaugurator of the ‘New Devotion’, or Christian 
Renaissance. Through his influence the schools of Deven- | 


ter and Zwolle were to become the seats of a revival of 
learning that was soon to spread all over Western Europe 
and be carried into the New World. 


How did it happen that Groote and the movement he 
inaugurated became devoted to the reform of the schools 
as well as of the Church? Why did the ‘““New Devotion”, 
which, as has been said, was a religious movement, ex- 
tend its influence to the realm of education, and why 
should one call it the “Christian Renaissance” ? The word 


Renaissance means literally rebirth, and the term Christ-. 


ian Renaissance, therefore, should refer to a great 
rebirth of Christianity. At the same time it should denote 
some movement which, like the Italian Renaissance, pro- 
duced a revival of learning. This was exactly the scope 
of the “New Devotion”. Thus far it has been commonly 
believed that the revival of learning North of the Alps 
was a product of the Italian Renaissance. We shall con- 
sider whether this actually was the case; whether the 
reform of the schools at Deventer and Zwolle, and of 
those reformed after their pattern grew out of the Italian 
Renaissance; and whether Groote and Cele in 1374 were 
inspired by the Italians, or originated their own ideas. 
Perhaps the physical geography of the Yssel valley 
had something to do with the twofold reform instituted 
by Groote and his followers. The cities in the Yssel 
country, though surrounded by immense heaths and 
moors, and situated somewhat apart from the busiest 
thoroughfares in the West, were nevertheless commercial 


sea nates eae 
fads PES RIT aa a ARs pe MOA - nent tae 


6 INTRODUCTION 


centres and shared in the prosperity of Bruges, Ghent, 
and Antwerp. They formed a part of the Low Countries, 
where from the days of Charlemagne until the end of 
the fifteenth century the currents of Western thought 
met and intermingled’. Through this middle region 
French monastic reforms, epics, and chivalry passed into 
Germany; and whatever ideas came from Germany to 
France traveled mostly by way of the Low Countries’. 
It was here that intellectual as well as religious and 
commercial currents met and mingled; and from here | 


_ | they issued forth. The Flemish towns were the first in 
' | Transalpine Europe to supplant the monasteries as chief 


/ seats of learning and art®. Under the rule of the dukes of 


rid Burgundy, Bruges and Ghent became the wealthiest cities 


North of the Alps, not excepting Paris and London. In 
the middle of the fifteenth century the court at Bruges 
outshone even the court at Paris’. Then followed the rise 
of Antwerp and Brussels, which brought more wealth, 
more leisure, and consequently more learning to the Low 
'Countries. Never before had the world seen such a port 
as Antwerp, since in this city for more than half of 
the sixteenth century nearly all the great routes of com- 
merce converged,—something which has never happened 
before nor since in any other port*®. The Low Countries, 
therefore, shared with Italy the honor of being the 
most opulent districts in Europe at the very time that 
the ‘“New Devotion’, or Christian Renaissance made its 
influence felt throughout the West. - 

Just as France bought wares of Italy in the Low 
Countries, so did Paris receive many of the best fruits of 
the Italian Renaissance by way of the Low Countries. 
The same can to a large extent be said of Germany, 
Switzerland, England, and Scandinavia. How this “New 
Devotion”, or Christian Renaissance, between 1380 and 


INTRODUCTION 7 


1520, absorbed the wisdom of the ancients, the essence 
of Christ’s teachings, the mystic religion of the Fathers 
and the saints of medieval Europe, as well as the learning 
of the Italian humanists; how it assimilated all these 
ingredients and presented them in a new dress to the old 
world and the new, will be shown in the following 


pages. 





CHAPTER 
GERARD. _GROOTE 
I 


Gerard Groote’ was born at Deventer in the year 
1340’, the son of Werner Groote, a prominent “‘schepen”’, 
or magistrate*, and Heylwig van der Basselen*. At an 
early age he was sent to the parochial school in his native 
city, then to Aachen, and later to Cologne’. In 1355 he 
matriculated in the University of Paris, where he stayed 
three years, studying philosophy, medicine, Canon Law, 
and logic’. He also studied magic at that time, a fact 
which caused him much regret in later years’. In 1358 
he obtained the degree of Master of Arts®, but remained 
some time at Paris after having secured the degree’. At 
Prague also he sought to improve his knowledge. How 
much time he spent there, however, the sources do not 
reveal. They merely inform us that he soon returned 
to Deventer*®, where he won great distinction, as the 
magistrates asked him to represent them at the papal 
court at Avignon, to negotiate with Pope Urban V on 
a question of tolls and other dues**. The mission proved 
successful. Not long after this he was living at Cologne 
in the enjoyment of the return from two prebends”. 
Heedless of the masses, and without eyes for the many 
forms of corruption ruining the Church, he ‘walked in 
the ways of the world’, according to Thomas a Kempis”’. 

One day, however, a mystic stopped Groote on the 
street and pointed out to him the wickedness of indulging 
in selfish delights. ‘‘Why do you stand here’’, he asked, 
“intent upon empty things? You ought to become another 

9 


10 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


man’’. The appeal made some impression on him, but not 
sufficient to alter his mode of life™. 

A second warning came to him in his native city, 
where next we meet him. He was now living with his 
uncle, as his father had died some time before. There he 
fell very ill. Nevertheless, the pastor of his uncle’s parish - 
church refused to administer the sacrament of communion 
to him, for he refused to give up the study of astrology 
and magic. The illness grew worse until finally Groote 
thought his end was near. Suddenly he realized how many 
years he had spent in quest of self-aggrandizement. At 
Cologne in particular he had wasted his opportunities. 
Experience had taught him how great was the need of 
reform in every part and office of the Church. But he 
had paid no heed to the deplorable state of affairs among 
the clergy, especially in the higher ranks. Just as a 
drowning man in one brief moment reviews all the events 
of his past life, so did Groote on his sick-bed at Deventer 
go over the days of his lost youth. He had much reason 
~ to condemn himself. He ordered his books on magic to be 
burned, and it seemed as if he was henceforth to be a 
changed man. But no, as soon as the disease left him, his 
good resolutions vanished also. We may safely conclude, 
however, that the warnings he had received at Cologne 
and at Deventer prepared the way for his final con- 
version, which took place shortly after the illness at 
Deventer’’. 

In 1374 Groote and an old friend, named Henry of 
Calcar, met at Utrecht. They had both been students at 
Paris, where an intimate friendship had knitted their 
souls with ties of common ideals and aspirations. But 
Henry had already yielded to the warning voice of con- 
science, while Gerard still hesitated. After a long talk 
Groote was convinced of the necessity of amending his 


GERARD GROOTE II 


life. This third and last appeal had struck home; it result- 
ed in a complete conversion’®. Firmly resolved to amend 
his ways, he returned to Deventer once more. First he 
gave up his two prebends”™; next he ceded the use of his 
house to a few poor women’, keeping only two small 
rooms for his own use**; then he entered upon the task 
of mastering his lower self. A terrific struggle, indeed! 
Yet Groote did not fail. The greater the load of his form- 
er wrongs seemed to him, the greater his desire became 
to root up the last vestiges of his sin, and to replace the 
conquered vices by virtues. 

Thus he battled for five long years”, the last two of 
which he spent in the Carthusian monastery of Monnik- 
huizen near Arnhem, where his friend Henry of Calcar 
was then prior. At Monnikhuizen Groote became an 
ascetic. Spurred on by the example of the other monks, 
he began to mortify the flesh, hoping thereby to overcome 
his sinful nature more rapidly and completely. His life at 
Monnikhuizen has been described by Thomas a Kempis: 
“Dressing in a long and coarse garment of hair-cloth, 
totally abstaining from the use of flesh and other lawful 
things, and passing a considerable portion of his nights 
in watching and prayer, he forced his feeble body into 
complete subservience to the spirit’’’*. The Carthusian 
monks were delighted with their enthusiastic disciple. 
Groote was never able thereafter wholly to escape from 
their influence, although his writings and his acts after 
1379 reveal a changed attitude, which was further 
developed by his, disciples after he had passed away. 

There was one other person who exerted a considerable 
influence upon Groote during the period of his spiritual 
struggles. This was John Ruysbroeck, prior of Groenen- 
daal, the Augustinian monastery in the forest of Soignies, 
near Brussels”*. Spending most of his time out of doors, 


12 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


a friend of birds and flowers, a lover of the contemplative 
life, he had tried to solve the mysteries of the universe, 
and had learned much. “Before I saw you’, he told 
Groote, “I knew you were coming”. He found a respon- 
sive listener in Groote, but the latter was unable to 
follow Ruysbroeck’s theories of the kingdom of heaven, 
the secret of love, the union of the human soul or spirit — 
with God, the various stages of the active and the con- 
templative life, the hierarchy of angels, and kindred sub- 
jects. Groote had not yet made much progress in mystic-_ 
ism as an abstract system of thought. And Ruysbroeck 
knew that: Therefore he said to Groote: “Some day you 
will understand”’™*. 

The first visit by Groote to Groenendaal must have 
taken place in the year 1375 or 1376. Groote had brought 
one of his most intimate friends with him, named John 
Cele, rector of the school at Zwolle’’, the teacher who was 
to inaugurate the reformation of the schools in the. 
Netherlands and Western Germany. We know much 
about Groote’s friendship with Cele and shall see his 
influence in Cele’s work. 

In 1379 Groote’s years of preparation were at an end. 
The Carthusian monks of Monnikhuizen, astonished at 
his gifts of argumentation and persuasion, told him that 
so great a light of religious ardor as he possessed should 
no longer remain beneath the roof of their little monas- 
tery, and advised him to go out among the people and 
preach”®. This advice Groote gladly followed. But he had 
too much reverence for the priesthood to don the garb of 
such an exalted calling*’, and thought the rank of deacon 
good enough for him. Consequently he was ordained dea- 
con shortly before the first of January, 1380, by the 
Bishop of Utrecht**. 

Beginning with the cities near the Yssel, he preached 


GERARD GROOTE 13 


the gospel of repentance at Deventer, Zwolle, Kampen, 
Zutphen, Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, 
Utrecht, Gouda, Delft, Ghent, and many smaller places”. 
He labored in the spirit of John the Baptist, says Thomas 
a Kempis, laying the axe to the root of the tree. His mag- 
netic personality, burning zeal to win souls, and power of 
conviction carried their message straight to the heart. 
The people came for miles to hear him, many of them 
leaving their work unfinished and their meals untouched. 
The huge churches in the larger cities did not have 
enough room to hold the surging crowds**. Remembering 
his own experiences, he warned the people of a future 
which might bring bitter regret and severe punishment. 
He addressed the clergy in Latin, the masses in the 
vernacular**. 

One day Groote addressed a considerable group of 
clerical dignitaries at Utrecht, and reproved them severely 
for their most flagrant sins: immorality, simony, and 
laziness mental and physical**. He had himself seen the 
evils that were undermining the Church, for he had been 
a monk himself, and before that had held two prebends, 
so was quite familiar with the state of affairs in his day. 
He had personal acquaintance with a great many priests, 
and fully realized how widely hypocrisy, immorality, 
greed, and self-indulgence were rampant among all ranks 
of the hierarchy. Many were wolves in the form of shep- 
herds, as he knew, and said that he knew! 

But Groote was equally concerned about the people, 
the wandering sheep, who were roaming about without 
the guiding help of their spiritual guardians, and exhorted 
them to be directed by their own consciences. For they 
possessed the reflex image of divinity within their breasts. 
He preached to them about Christ’s commandments, and 
urged them to imitate the life of Christ, as he, Groote, 


14 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


himself was trying to do. To love God above all things, 
and one’s neighbors as one-self, those were the two com- 
mandments, he said. We should try to eradicate vice and 
supplant it with newly acquired virtues, for we human 
beings, having -been endowed with a spark of divinity, 
are not totally depraved. We should purge the impure 
flesh in which the soul condescends to dwell until our 
body’s death. Our soul should be allowed no longer to re- 
main obscured by the dense mists of sin woven around it » 
by evil thoughts, words, and deeds. Man has fallen low, 
but he does not have to remain in the dust. Let him realize 
the tremendous possibilities of future glory or future 
punishment. He must choose, and is free to choose, 
though all his acts have been predestined from eternity. 

With this appeal to all classes of men and women 
Groote aimed to teach others what he had already exper- 
ienced himself. Instinctively the people felt that a new 
prophet had appeared, a man of extraordinary experience 
and power. As he went from town to town, he sent one 
of his disciples ahead to post the announcement of his in- _ 
tended address on the church door**. Then the people 
would come and look, tell their neighbors about the great 
news, and make the necessary preparations to hear the 
sermon. The farmer would hear of it, and take his family 
to town, leaving his crops to take care of themselves ; shops 
were closed, almost everybody came. 

Wherever Groote came to preach, a group of men and 
women, aroused from apathy, changed their lives and 
continued his work in their locality by personal example 
and appeal, and by lending religious books to their neigh- 
bors**. This was the beginning of the great religious 
movement, named ‘“‘Devotio Moderna’, or New Devo- 
tion, which will be the subject of our study. In Deventer, 
Zwolle, Kampen, Zutphen, Doesburg; also in Arnhem, 


GERARD GROOTE 15 


Utrecht, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, and Delft the 
fires of devotion were kept burning brightly after Groote 
had passed on. He himself gathered about him a band of 
twelve disciples at Deventer*®. Among this number was a 
young man of about thirty, named Florentius Radewijns, 
who had given up his prebend at Utrecht to be in closer 
touch with Groote**. In Deventer he was vicar of the altar 
of St. Paul in the church of St. Lebwin*’, and soon it 
became a custom for Groote’s followers to hold meetings 
in the vicar’s house. A few of them came to live with 
him**, while others followed Groote on his journeys”, or 
remained at home*®. These meetings in the house of 
Radewijns were the earliest visible beginnings of the 
society or congregation of the Brethren of the Common 
Life®. 

Groote continued his labors as itinerary preacher till 
the year 1383. His success had been great, but he had 
made many enemies among the mendicants and the secu- 
lar clergy, by pointing out the evils among them. They 
were the more exasperated because with his great learn- 
ing and -his pure, unselfish mode of life he had easily 
confounded their wits. Their temporary defeat engendered 
a jealous, spiteful hatred for the man who had so boldly 
attacked them**. They went to the Bishop of Utrecht and 
made their complaint; they told him that Groote had 
attacked and denounced them; and that he had tried to 
lead the masses away from the folds of the Church. Now 
the sheep were leaving their true shepherds, they said, in 
order to follow after a man who was not even a priest. 
Should not such a person be commanded to stop preaching 
entirely? The bishop listened and assented. No deacon 
was henceforth to preach in public; Groote was silenced**. 

But Groote, though he obeyed the edict, decided not to 
sit idle in the future. His friends appealed to the pope*. 


16 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


In the meantime Groote continued to write. The end of 
his mortal life was near, but this last year at Deventer 
may perhaps be considered the most important one in the 
history of the great religious revival which he inaugurat- 
ed. He now had more time to reflect upon his past, to 
instruct his followers, and to speak oftener with the 
teachers and pupils of the cathedral school. Several boys 
and young men were employed by him to copy books. 
Whenever he had a chance, he talked to them about some 
religious subject, trying to win them for the kingdom of 
God. They were the material most needed, he thought, 
_ for the reform of the Church*. Religion and learning 
must go hand in hand. The clergy ought to receive a 
liberal education before assuming the leadership of the 
people. Teachers, on the other hand, would do well to in- 
clude religious instruction among the other subjects 
taught by them. These boys, said Groote to himself, will 
/ some day be leaders among men. Some of them will enter 
_ monasteries, others will teach; one or two among them 
/ are likely to become merchants or magistrates, while a 
“few others may rise to the priesthood, or even higher. 
While their characters are still pliable, the ardor of youth 
in their veins, it is time to fill their minds with noble am- 
bitions. Hence Groote gladly devoted a considerable share 
of his energy to the religious training of school boys. 
He was assisted in this undertaking by his followers,. 
both at Deventer*®, and at Zwolle*’. Thus the founda- 
tions were laid for the great revival of learning which 
was started and supervised by the Brethren of the 
Common Life. 

In 1383 Groote entered also upon a new task. It was. 
not enough, he said, that the clergy be educated. The 
people too must read and decide for themselves. Religion 
should be personal for all men and women. What good 


GERARD GROOTE 17 


does it do, he reasoned, for a layman merely to go to 
church? Will that cure his spiritual ills? Certainly not. He 
must do more than listen to his preacher; he must read 
and think for himself. And in order to make this possible. 
he began to translate portions of the Bible and a great 
many church hymns into the vernacular, at the-same time 
providing these translations with glosses and other ex- 
planations*®. ; 

A pestilence broke out at Deventer in the summer of 
the year 1384. One of Groote’s followers, named Lambert 
Stuerman, caught the disease. Groote felt it incumbent 
upon him to visit his beloved friend and became infected 
himself. There was no hope of recovery; on the 20th of 
August he passed away*®. But his ideals and his plans did 
not die with him, as will appear. 


II 


Groote had gleaned part of his knowledge’ from the 
Bible, the writings of Albert Magnus, Ambrose, Anselm, 
Antony, Apuleius, Aristotle, Augustine, Bede, Bernard 
of Clairvaux, Boethius, Bonaventura, Cassianus, Cato, 
Chrysostom, Cicero, Climacus, Cyprian, Demosthenes, 
Dionysius, Eusebius, Fabricius, Francis of Assisi, Greg- 
ory, Gregory of Nianza, Henry of Ghent, Hippocrates, 
Isidor, Jerome, Juvenal, Lucan, Lyra, Nepos, Permenian- 
us Donatista, Peter of Damiani, Plato, Pliny, Seneca, 
Socrates, Suetonius, Suso, Theophrastus, Thomas Aquin- 
as, Valerius, Vegetius, Virgil, and the Canon Law with 
its commentaries”. 

Another field of knowledge was the contact with his 
friends, of whom John Ruysbroeck was one. It was he 
who had initiated Groote into the mysterious realm of 
the contemplative life: ‘ ‘The creature is in Brahma and 
Brahma is in the creature; they are ever distinct yet ever 


18 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


united’, says the Indian mystic. Were it translated into 
Christian language, it is probable that this thought — 
which does not involve pantheism — would have been 
found acceptable by Ruysbroeck, for the interpenetration 
yet eternal distinction of the human and divine spirits 
is the central fact of his universe. Man, he thinks, is 
already related in a three-fold manner to his Infinite 
Source, for we have our being in him, as the Father, we 
contemplate him as does the Son, we ceaselessly tend to — 
return to him as does the Spirit. So the Superessential 
Life is the simple, the synthetic life, in which man 
actualises at last all the resources of his complex being. 
The active life of response to the Temporal Order, the 
contemplative life of response to the Transcendent Order 
are united, firmly held together, by that eternal fixation 
of the spirit, the perpetual willed dwelling of the being of 
man within the Incomprehensible Abyss of the Being of 
God, qui est per omma saecula benedictus. ‘To this divine 
vision but few men can attain, because of their own un- 
fitness and because of the darkness of that Light where- 
by we see, and therefore no one shall thoroughly under- 
stand this perception by means of any scholarship, or 
by own acuteness of comprehension. For all words, 
and all that men may learn and understand in a creaturely 
fashion, is foreign to this and far below the truth that 
I mean’ ’’*?, 

_ Groote, also, became a mystic. His mysticism, how- 
ever, differed considerably from that of his aged friend. 
In spite of his great reverence for Ruysbroeck”, he 
could never persuade himself to adopt those views 
which the church of Rome considered heretical®*. From 
the day of his conversion at Utrecht in 1374 Groote saw 
very little value in abstract thinking. He never became 
more than a distant admirer of Ruysbroeck, and similarly 


GERARD GROOTE 19 


refused to subscribe to the views of the scholastic philo- ,), 
sophers. He was not a Thomist, though he has been /} 
thought one. In his opinion Thomas Aquinas wasted /é 
a great deal of time on topics of no practical value what- 
soever. There is but one work of Groote left in which 

he enunciates purely philosophical views. This is the 
“Sermon, or Treatise, on the Birth of Christ’, which 

in all probability he addressed to a learned body of clerics. 

In this sermon he most explicitly disapproves of scholastic 
philosophy®’, and does not méntion the name of Thomas 
Aquinas, while in many of his other works he only refers 

to this philosopher as an authority on theological or moral 
questions, never as a philosopher whose views he admires. 

At least two subsequent leaders of the “New Devotion” 
likewise warned their followers against the writings of 
Aquinas. One of these was John Vos of Heusden, a 
disciple and intimate friend of Groote’s. 

The theology and philosophy of Gerard Groote was 
based chiefly upon the New Testament, and the Fathers ; / 
in a lesser degree also upon the works of Greek, Roman, ( 
and medieval philosophers. If we are to compare his 
ideas with those of any other philosopher, we might say 
that his works betray the exceedingly powerful influence . 
of Augustine. And if we are to give a name to Groote’s 
philosophy, we might safely call it Augustinian. 

With Adam the whole human race fell, says Groote*’. 
There have been wise men like Solomon, humble men 
like David, strong men like Samson, yet every one of 
these was but a shadow of what he might have been*’. 
Man, created in the image of God, has fallen low, un- 
speakably low. Once enjoying the pure reflex light of 
divinity, he now is no longer able to fathom the mysteries 
of life. His fall was the inevitable result of disobedience 
to the “Lex Dei’’, the immutable law of God. When- 


20 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


ever man disobeys that law, he sins, for sin is disobedi- 
ence’*. And since the “Lex Dei” is the highest of all 
laws, one should never obey the command of any man, 
be he the pope himself, if such a command should oppose 
God’s law; for is not the pope also subject to the “Lex 
Dei’’*’? Before the Fall, man had this law engraved 
in his heart, but since that time his inteliect has grown 
dim, and the more he sins, the further he is removed from 
the ‘‘suprema ratio”, or supreme source of wisdom®. God 
is the Alpha and the Omega, from whom all things de- 
velop, and to whom they all return, either in a natural 
way or through grace*. Sin obscures the intellect, 
evil enfeebles the will; slowly the light of wisdom van- 
ishes as the obstinate sinner turns farther and farther 
away from the supreme Law-giver, who offers peace and 
joy through humble obedience. 

But man is not wholly depraved. He still possesses 
a small spark of divinity within his breast, a radiant gleam 
of light, which may be fanned into a bright flame*?. 
God is a spirit, and all who worship him must obey the 
voice of their spirits. We should aim to cultivate the 
inner life, for the kingdom of heaven is within us, as 
Christ said; here in the innermost depths of our hearts 
we may find the voice of God**. Similarly, the king- 
dom of evil is also within us, for from the corrupt heart 
of man come forth all sinful thoughts. He who cannot 
control his inner life will never succeed in governing his 
outward acts. Let us therefore endeavor to silence 
the forces of evil, and listen to the Father’s voice. It is 
God alone who can convert the sinful heart®*. Happy 
the man that has decided to make room within his heart 
for Christ, who is continually knocking at the door, pa- 
tiently waiting for a response. And if the door is once 
opened, when Christ enters with his sweet conversation, 


GERARD GROOTE 21 


then the wisdom from heaven will fill that human temple 
with the peace which passes all understanding®®. “When 
I read the psalms”, said Groote to his friend, John 
Brinckerinck, “hidden manna is flowing into my inner 
self, so that I experience no fatigue in reading, but sweet 
rapture instead’’*’. Groote constantly urged his disciples 
to seek communion with God the Father, a spiritual com- 
munion with a spiritual God. For God is the “summum 
bonum”’ ; if we have him, we have all goodness; if we lose 
him, nothing but evil is left unto us. And why? Because 
that part of us which is divine cannot exist without the 
life-giving contact with him who alone can sustain life 
and nourish our inner selves®. 

Hence the need Groote felt in common with all other 
mystics to remain in touch with God. As a Christian 
mystic he sought this contact through Christ®. He 
made it a point to attend mass every day. “Let me first 
seek the kingdom”, he thought, “and then I shall so much 
the better be able to serve my neighbor’’. Consequently 
he would stay till the end of the mass as often as pos- 
sible to partake of the communion”. It was also his 
habit to withdraw himself several times a day from the 
busy life of the outer world for prayer, surrendering him- 
self wholly to God, saying: “Here J am Lord; teach 
me to do thy will, make mine conform to thine’™. As 
a mystic Groote maintained that the reading of good 
books should at all times be supplemented by meditation 
and prayer, for contact with God himself he considered 
the only way of obtaining the highest wisdom’. When- 
ever he was conscious of this contact between himself and 
God, his ‘soul would leap with joy”. Songs of thanks- 
giving would escape from his fervent lips, for at such 
moments “that wonderful peace promised by Christ 
would settle upon him”’®, 


——_» 


22 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


And what is the tie which unites man with his maker? 
Groote held that it is love, and love only. “Try to love’, 
he said, “for in loving you shall find the kingdom of 
heaven"*. If .once you have fotthd this kingdom, you 
will enjoy righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 


Ghost. Without these three gifts all outward show of 


piety, such as fasting, and mortification of the flesh, will 
be of no avail’’”*. But how is one to show one’s love 
for God? By sitting in one’s cell, aloof from the out- | 
side world? Not at all, for he who really loves God, 
loves all of God’s creatures. “Although one should avoid 
too much idle conversation with ‘worldly people’®’, one 
ought never to shun their presence, but work among them, 
trying to make them also participants of the joys celestial, 
far superior as they are to any delights bestowed by our 
bodily senses’’’’. Groote had tasted the supreme felicity 
love brings to all those who cheerfully lay their dearest 
treasures upon the altar of self-sacrifice’. Thomas a 
Kempis tells that “when Groote felt the force of love 
in his heart, his soul would sing with joy, and his spirit, 
as a flame, was borne upward to God’”’*. Groote ‘con- 
stantly exhorted his disciples to cast out jealousy for sym- 
pathy, spite for charity, rancor for love. “Close your 
eyes to your neighbor’s defects’, he would say, “and try 
to discover his good qualities, which are always worth 
considering; nay more ‘than that, they are the only side 
of his character it is well for you to dwell upon®. For 
our soul’s health can only be sustained by thoughts of 
love. And strange to say, the more love we spend, the 
more we receive, together with much joy in the spirit. We 
must also fight melancholy, despondency, dejectedness : 
these are the enemies of our spiritual existence’’®*. Groo- 
te found it quite easy to love even his enemies, after once 
having tasted the heavenly bliss which attends every act 


GERARD GROOTE 23 


of whole-hearted forgiveness’. “The health of his 
soul”, says Thomas a Kempis, “gave to his food a savor 
beyond that of any pleasant meat...... He sent away 
his guests joyful in the Lord’’*’. 

Groote was more than a philosopher, more than a mere 
mystic. He carried on an active campaign against the 
dying scholasticism of his day. “Why should we indulge 
in those endless disputes’’, he would say, ‘‘such as are held 
at the universities, and that about subjects of no moral 
value whatsoever’? “Do not therefore attend court’’, 
he advised, “and if you are asked to go, send a substi- 
tute’’**. When he referred to the works of philosophers, 
he always singled out those passages which had practical 
value. Among the philosophers of ancient Greece and 
Rome he preferred men like Plato, Socrates, and Seneca, 
who had endeavored to solve certain moral problems for 
the benefit of their fellow-men. “Words merely serve 
to convey our thoughts to others’, he wrote one day; 
“they are the servants, not the masters of sense and ex- 
pression’’*°. 

The same spirit which impelled Groote to attack the de- 
cadent scholasticism of his time induced him also to com- 
bat indolence, physical as well as mental. He wanted 
no women to live in his house at Deventer, for example, 
who did not want to gain their own livelihood with their 
own hands. “At present”, he wrote in a certain letter, 
“T am firmly resolved to accept no one who is able to 
work, but wants to beg for her meals somewhere in the 
city. All those shall work who are in a condition to do 
so, and if the time should come when they cannot per- 
form manual labor any longer, then it will be early enough 
for them to accept alms. This I say, because labor is 
necessary for the well-being of mankind. In trying to 
avoid physical exertion, these women fall into the danger 


: 


24 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of idleness, thereby forgetting the study of their own 
inner selves, and wander from house to house, inquisitive 
and restless, prying into other people’s affairs, ignoring 
their own duties’”**. On the ground of indolence Groote 
also attacked the mendicant friars, who in return showed 
him and his followers after him no small amount of 
hostility*’. 

What Groote wanted was more Christianity, plain and 
simple. To follow in the footsteps of Christ, to bear 
his cross in humble submission, that was Groote’s aim*. 
For that reason he gave up his prebends, ceded his house 
to some devout women, and compassed land and sea to 
tell others about Christ’s message; he tried to return good 
for evil, to treat the obstinate with patience, the suffering 
with sympathy, the impudent with forbearance. Thus 
he labored for three years and a half, loved by the masses, 
and followed by thousands of grateful disciples. He was 
not a profound scholar, not a great philosopher. The > 
subtle arguments of the learned doctors at Paris, Cologne, 
and Prague he regarded as foolishness. He sought nothing 
but the conversion of sinners, the formation of a har- 
moniously developed character on the part of his disciples, 
and the extension of God’s kingdom on earth. Groote 
was neither Thomist, nor Scotist; he did not imitate 
Ruysbroeck as a lover of solitary nooks in forest or | 
monastery, but preferred a life of action among men. He 
wanted to be a Christian, and the movement he set on 
foot was a Christian Renaissance. 


III 


Groote was deeply concerned about the Church. In- 
deed, among the reformers of the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries he occupies a leading position. Few men 
were so well acquainted with the decline in moral stan- 


GERARD GROOTE 25 


dards among all ranks of the clergy as he, and very few, if 
any, so bitterly lamented the impending collapse of the 
Church. Instead of ignoring the dangers which were 
threatening the Church from within, he sought to stay 
the evil by attacking those who were the cause of the 
wide-spread demoralization : monks, priests, and bishops, 
as well as common people. He tried to rouse them all 
from their mental and spiritual lethargy. 

In the first place he endeavored to extend the meaning 
of the word “religio”, which in his time was not the 
equivalent of the English word religion, but served to 
distinguish the monks, or regular clergy, from other 
people. He protested against the wrong interpretation 
of the word “religio”. “If devout women’, he wrote, 
“separate themselves from the world, and try to serve God 
in the privacy of their homes, without taking monastic 
vows, they are just as religious as the nuns in their con- 
vents. To love God and worship him is religion, not 
the taking of special vows. For the cause and purpose 
of things give them their names and forms. If it is, 
therefore, one’s aim to live a religious life, his way of 
living becomes religious in God’s opinion, and according 
to the judgment of our consciences’”*’. On another 
occasion he said: ‘Truly religious men are not confined 
by place, time, or manner of men’. “All these’, he 
continued, “‘who live aloof from the world to serve God, 
who despise temporal honors; leading chaste lives, obe- 
dient and poor: they are religious people’. 

“No one may found a new religious order”, continues 
Groote, “without the pope’s permission, but it is not 
wrong, I believe, for two or more persons to live together 
in observance of certain established rules, or the rule of 
all rules, namely, the blessed Gospel ; that is not forbidden, 
I think. The mere name ‘religio’ signifies but little; 


26 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


it is not the name which determines the nature of a thing. 
Names are conventional. Therefore, the ‘Horologium™ 
iS right in saying: ‘Many so-called religious people go 
about in cowls and wear other outward garbs of religio, 
but within they are lions, bears,—terrible beasts’. There 
are many who are not protected by the name ‘religio’, 
and yet they may be more religious than those whom 
the Church calls religious’’®’. 

In the year 1379 Groote left the monastery, and never 
returned to it. Did he afterwards perhaps cherish so_ 
much reverence for the monastic life that he never dared 
to enter a monastery again**? We know that he had 
great respect for a pious monk who left his friends and 
relatives for the sole purpose of worshiping God more 
perfectly. Whenever he made acquaintance with persons 
who showed a burning desire to come into closer relation 
to God, and seemed to be eminently fitted for the monas- 
tic state, he did not hesitate to praise and recommend 
monasticism®’. To others, who had taken monastic 
vows, he was accustomed to write frequently, reminding 
them of the reason why they entered the monastery. 
Since they had decided to serve God in comparative se- 
clusion, they should no longer indulge in gossip, but 
should close their ears to rumors, quarrels, wars, and 
festivals ; they should live soberly, and perform their daily 
tasks with alacrity°*. Many other examples might be 
adduced to show that Groote approved of monasticism*’, 
though his approval was not unqualified. Some people 
seemed to be particularly well fitted for the monastic life, 
but not he, nor those among his disciples whose ability to 
instruct the young, to preach to the masses, to remind 
the clergy of their shortcomings, or to comfort the poor 
and the afflicted, impelled them to employ their talents in 
the service of their neighbors, instead of burying them in 


GERARD GROOTE 27 


the solitude of a lonely cell. Hence we find him writing 
to one of his followers: “I dare not advise you to enter 
a monastery, though it is not for me to judge, being ig- 
norant of God’s ways. My desire is that you remain in 
the world, and be not of the world’®*®. When John 
Cele, rector of the school at Zwolle, wanted to discontinue 
his work as teacher and become a monk, Groote urged 
him to remain at Zwolle, where he was doing such splen- 
did work, not only among the school boys, but also as a 
preacher*®. Though Groote perfectly understood and 
never failed to appreciate the merits of monasticism, he 
was by no means blind to the laxity of discipline notice- 
able in nearly all monasteries. Monks were not less prone 
to sin than other men*°®. Hence he vigorously attacked 
the greatest monastic evils: immorality, simony, and in- 
dolence***. 
- Groote’s attitude towards the secular clergy and the 
Church in general was that of a reformer, not that of a 
revolutionist. He did not- engage in negative criticism 
alone, as many of the humanists did, but supplemented 
his criticism with constructive plans. He was not satis- 
fied with conditions as he had himself seen them at De- 
venter, Aachen, Cologne, Paris, Utrecht, and Avignon, 
for he loved the Church too much not to be grieved at 
its dangerous condition. However, he did not attack 
the doctrines or dogma of the Church. “Everything I 
have preached is in complete accordance with the teach- 
ings of the Church”, he wrote; “wherever I have been 
wrong I shall gladly retract. I submit myself to the 
authority (judgment) of the Church’”*’. 
The Church, in Groote’s opinion, was a divine insti- 
tution; its teachings were promulgated by servants of 
God, who had been inspired by the Holy Ghost. In the 
realm of dogma or doctrine, therefore, the Church was 


28 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


supreme, and its teachings infallible. Although he drew 
a careful distinction between the Bible and other religious 
writings, he did not go so far as later reformers and say: 
“T submit myself only to the authority of the Scriptures”, 
for he was firmly convinced that since Christ had prom- 
ised to remain with his church until the end, it would 
be preposterous for him to lay claim to a better knowledge 
of the Bible than the Church Fathers and the medieval 
saints possessed*’®. 

Groote never dreamed of calling the Church supreme — 
in the realm of morals, however, for he said: ‘There are 
some men to-day who exalt the judgments of the Church, 
because to them they are better known than the com- 
mandments of God, or the laws of-nature, since they are 
ignorant of these laws, due to the darkness of their hearts ; 
they are disposed, as were the Scribes and Pharisees, to 
transgress the law for the sake of human traditions, or 
the regulations of the Elders, for the instructions of the 
Church are more familiar to them than the laws of na- 
ture, or the commandments of God’’***. Far from wishing 
to break the Church, he deplored the schism within the _ 
Church and exclaimed: “I wish that both popes with all 
their cardinals would sing a ‘Gloria in excelsis’ in heaven, 
and that a true Eliakim would bring peace and harmony 
upon earth*®’. This schism cannot be healed without 
some terrible blow to the Church, which has long been in 
a position of decrepitude, ready to fall to pieces, and now 
the head itself is in a sad condition’”*®*. 

The most exalted office a man could fill on earth, in 
Groote’s eyes, was the cure of souls, and even the pope 
was a greater man as. priest than as head of the 
Church*®*’. Consequently -the worst form of. simony 
was that of accepting or dispensing such a benefice for 
money. The cure of souls should be a thing quite 


GERARD GROOTE 29 


spiritual, quite divine’**. And it should be a bishop’s 
duty to appoint for these spiritual tasks only men who had 
been endowed with a clear mind, whose hearts were pure, 
and whose aims were unselfish. If a bishop could not 
find trustworthy shepherds for his sheep, he had better 
resign his office, in spite of all the regulations found in the 
Canon Law and all the laws enacted by the Church’. 

Groote’s views on the sacraments are closely allied with 
his opinion regarding the duties of the clergy. “If the 
pope should command you’, he says to the lower clergy, 
“or a bishop, or any other superior, under whatever 
form of penalty, even that of excommunication, suspen- 
sion, deposition, or privation, to administer the Holy Sup- 
per, and you have not repented of certain mortal sins, no 
human law of obedience can compel you to do it; on the 
other hand, you should refuse to administer the sacra- 
ment in question, heedless of all temporal loss or calum- 
ny’. For the laws and regulations of the Church 
are on the same level with those enacted by all human 
agencies’, “The sacraments’, continues Groote, 
“have power independent of the priest who administers 
them, and his sins have no effect on the nature of the 
sacrament; all one’s pollutions are taken away by one’s 
faith in Christ, nor can any sinner pollute the divine 
sacraments’’™””, 

As for the sacrament of penance, no priest, says Groo- 
te, has the right to forgive any sins of any person who 
has not confessed all his evil deeds and decided never, if 
possible, to repeat them again. For if the sinner intends 
no repentance, absolution is idle; in such cases the priest 
must repeal his pronouncement of forgiveness. The 
sole condition required in this transaction is the sinner’s 
repentance. All the priest can do is to act when the sin- 
ner is sincere in his confession and has resolved to amend 


* 


30 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


his evil ways’*. Great caution is required of him, for 
suppose he forgives sins which God as yet cannot forgive, 
what benefit will the sinner receive? The priest presents 
the sinner to the Church as absolved from his load of sin, 
whereas the Church Triumphant or the Immaculate 
Church, that is, the inner circle of true believers terres- 
tial as well as celestial, refuses to accept him. He is 
introduced at the outer gate, but is repelled by those with- 
in the enclosure’*. The priest’s chief aim should be 
to convert sinners, for the conversion of sinners is a - 
greater work than the creation of the world. “I be- 
lieve”, said Groote, “that prayer is more beneficial than 
mechanical rules and transactions; admonition is better 
than absolution, for after all it is God alone who can 
convert sinners**®. Suppose somebody takes his neigh- 
bor’s property, and is unrepentant, then all his confes- 
sions are of no avail, and every one who absolves him is 
simply a servant of the devil’”*. 

Groote was here taking a stand that later made Luther 
famous. It should be noted that Groote had no desire to 
break away from the Church. He even tried to silence 
four “heretics”. In one of his letters we find him address- 
ing a certain “Brother John”, who had preached against 
him at Zutphen, Zwolle, and Kampen. “Your words were 
full of idle boasting and blasphemy”, he tells him; “thus 
far I have suffered you to continue, but now I can stand 
it no longer. You shall retract, else I shall take you 
before the Roman Curia. Beware, if you still persevere 
in your obstinate course, after these friendly warn- 
ings’**’. John probably heeded Groote’s warning, but 
the other three men Groote attacked publicly. One 
of them was Bartholomew, an Augustinian friar from 
Dordrecht, a friend and to a great extent a follower of 
a curious sect, known as the “Free Spirits’***, who 


GERARD GROOTE 31 


preached the following doctrines: “God is neither life, 
nor light, nor nature. The divine essence is my essence, 
and my essence is divine essence. Just as man cannot 
exist without God, God is unable to live without man’s 
aid. Divinity is dependent on man. Man is perfect God. 
Man from eternity is God in God. Man is never born, 
but has existed from eternity. The aim of every man 
should be to lose himself in the Nothingness of the 
Godhead; then he will be like Christ, both God and man. 
Every man, therefore, is saved through the immanence 
of the Holy Ghost, not through Christ’s sacrifice. There 
is only one sin: to remain under the law of good works, 
rewards, and punishment; consequently there is but one 
virtue: to free oneself from these. And again, there is 
no evil in such imaginary sins as lust, pride, theft, hat- 
red’’***. Groote wanted to silence preachers who taught 
such doctrines. ““Bartholomew enters inns’’, he wrote, “and 
gets many friends there, for he finds fault with no one. 
Nothing is so dangerous as to preach about God and per- 
fection, and not to point out the way which leads to per- 
fection. Penitence is hardly necessary in his opinion; tell 
him that if he is to preach any longer, he must show the 
people the way to heaven through Christ by following in 
his footsteps, not by ignoring the imperfection of man, 
and the existence of sin. I mean to listen to him in secret 
with a notary public, catch him at his game, and make it 
impossible for him to continue his present work as ser- 
vant of the devil’. After some delay he finally 
succeeded in having Bartholomew silenced by the Bishop 
of Utrecht***. 

From the day of Groote’s conversion he never was a 
friend of the mendicant monks, for he hated indolence. 
“It is well for a true Christian”, he would say, “to cede. 
his possessions to the poor. This will compel him to 


32 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


work for his daily bread*’*. Poverty without begging is 
a boon to the pilgrim, for he should be freed from all 
temporal encumbrances”*. Man is only’a steward here 
on earth, wherefore it is his duty to confine his expen- 
ditures to a small minimum’**. Why should one be 
jealous of one’s neighbor who is leading a life of lux- 
ury’’*°? Groote himself had spent all his possessions 
for the extension of God’s kingdom upon earth. So 
little, in fact, he had reserved that sometimes he had to 
ask one of his friends for a small loan’***. In his poverty 
he aimed to imitate Christ. ‘“O Lord of all riches’, he 
exclaimed, ‘why didst thou elect such humble garments? 
Why didst thou choose to sit on an ass which was found. 
tied to a gate near a public road, upon which even the 
humblest man was free to ride, and worse, on a colt 
upon whose back no man had ever sat, as it had thus far 
been used for the meanest sorts of employment? Re- 
joice, ye poor ones, for this seeming poverty is but a 
guise, since he, though poor in earthly goods, was mas- 
ter of all, magnificent, royal, divine! Follow in his. 
footsteps, ascend the road which leads from ignominy to: 
glory, from toil and strife to peace and rest, to heights 
sublime’”??’, 

All obstacles should be removed which might in any 
way obstruct his path, wherefore he deemed it best for > 
men such as he not to marry or to be at all familiar 
with women. He shunned them himself: to the women 
in his house he never spoke except through a closed and ~ 
curtained window’. Basing his views upon certain 
passages found in the New Testament and in the writ- 
ings of St. Augustine’®, he exhorted the lower clergy 
who wished to serve God above all things not to marry**: 
“Marriage is a hindrance to him who intends to develop- 
his spiritual nature, for it brings sorrows of its own, 


ox 


GERARD GROOTE 33 


as well as joys, cares, and much worldly thought. There 
are many men who have had to give up their career as 
scholar or philosopher, as the inevitable result of their 
friendships with women’, 

To those for whom he thought marriage fitting, he 
also offered serious counsel. His disciples should choose 
devout wives, — chaste, virtuous, and true, —and one 
must not assume that he can draw an ungodly woman 
to God’*’. The marriage tie is sacred, for marriage is ' 
a symbol of the eventual union between Christ and his 
church. Therefore it is a man’s duty to love his wife 
as much as the church is loved by Christ; he has no 
right to frequent inns and loaf about town at night. 
Christ does indeed love his church, and readily forgives 
the sins of his beloved, as husbands and wives should 
remember, cover each other’s defects, avoid quarrels and 
ill-feeling. For perfect love hides all the faults of its 
object**®. 

It would not be right to call Groote a pessimist. He 
thought that it was always best to dwell more upon the 
hope of eternal glory rather than upon the pains of 
hell’**. As for the theory of good works, he wrote: 
“Christ would rather see a wife obedient to her husband 
and quietly performing her daily tasks than any ascetic 
doing penitence, and not obedient, or kind-hearted”**’. 
“Asceticism”, he writes on another occasion, “is often 
very harmful, for the devil will frequently use it as a 
tool, telling the person in question that it is a very help- 
ful method for the religious student, and yet all this 
watching, praying, and fasting will often cause mental 
diseases, anger, or pride. Man is prone to think that 
he can do good on his own initiative, thus taking too 
much pride in his own work, which if really good, is not 
his work, but that of God.. Hence there are many people 


5 


34 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


who pray much and inflict physical hardships upon them- 
selves, while within they are unrighteous and avarici- 
ous?’*"*; 

Groote himself did not lead a gloomy life, for he felt 
he had lived in that peace which passeth all understand- 
ing, and all temporal delights. The happiness enjoyed 
by him when conscious of this blessed peace was plainly 
visible upon his features'*’. The reading of the Scrip-— 
tures gave him great joy’’*. When his friend Cele was 
depressed and worried about his shortcomings and his 
weakness amidst the many temptations he had to en- 
counter, Groote wrote him an encouraging letter: “Be 
happy in the Lord, for nothing is so helpful in temptation 
as mental happiness and confidence in God’**®. “It is 
our duty”, he says, “to make ourselves worthy habita- 
tions, where Christ will be pleased to dwell**®. The Holy 
Ghost will readily assist us in acquiring virtue, for 
virtues are indeed gifts of the Holy Ghost. Far above 
the sacraments, above miracles and prophecies stand 
virtue and love***. All virtues are to be employed as — 
tools wherewith we can increase love; through love 
they unite us with God the Father, and the Holy Ghost. 
Just as many twigs sprout from one common root, so 
are many virtues shaped by one force—namely, love**’. 
Our enemy Satan knows very well that all external 
works and all spiritual exercises without love and faith 
are valueless. He persuades many to perform good 
works, telling them that thereby they will obtain salva- 
tion. Thus by devoting all their attention to these ‘good 
works’, they neglect their inner selves, where salvation 
and the kingdom of heaven may be found’’***. 

The greatest of all virtues was humility. “The more 
we realize our own imperfections”, says Groote, “the 
nearer we approach perfection’’***. ‘Before all things”, 


o% 


GERARD GROOTE 35 


he continues, “and in all things study specially to become 
humble inwardly. For it is far better to do but little 
good out of obedience to God’s will than to do a great 
deal more on one’s own account, since the lesser becomes 
the greater before God***. ‘Good will’ means to acquiesce 
in God’s will, for everything that occurs is an act of 
God’s will. God speaks to us through his acts. Blessed 
is he who obeys God’s voice and bears in mind that 
everything which befalls him is predestined by God, 
even the wrongs done by others. False accusations and 
slander he ought to bear in peace, for God knows best**®. 
Let him say to his Creator: ‘Lord, all that is mine and 
my own self I surrender to thee; I renounce my will for 
thy sake. This is the greatest thing I have been able to 
‘do in this world’ ’’**, 


IV 


Groote also was deeply interested in education. He 
never became a teacher himself, nor did he expect much 
of mere formal study as an aim in itself. Such subjects 
as geometry, arithmetic, rhetoric, logic, grammar, poetry, 
and astronomy, he thought, were of very little use to 
him. “‘Whatsoever doth not make thee a better Christian’, 
he once said, ‘‘is harmful”. He asserted that for him it 
was really a waste of time to get a degree in medicine, 
for such a degree would bring no practical results. The 
same was true of a degree in civil and canon law***. Yet 
he was by no means opposed to learning, as his writings 
plainly show. : 

Groote loved books. He never had enough of them, 
and eagerly acquired each new addition to his library. 
Sometimes five copyists were kept busy writing manu- 
scripts for him***. His friends bought books or lent them 
to him**®. So much he thought of his library that he 


36 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


arranged for a committee of three men to be in charge 
of his books after his death. These three men are called 
“guardians of Groote’s books” in the documents of that 
time***. Groote not only read books whenever he had a 
chance, he simply devoured them, says one of his bio- 
graphers*”’. There were times when he would wonder 
whether it really was right for him to love those books 
so passionately, but when he reproached himself for 
this “thirst of his after mere book-learning’”’®*, he very | 
soon would dismiss his misgivings. 

He devoted himself to encourage learning in school 
boys, often inviting them to his house, where he had 
them copy books for him and talked with them about 
their work at school, their aims and ideals. As they 
opened their hearts to him, he formed plans to help the 
boys .who had no home and practically no friends at 
Deventer. If they needed good food and clothing he 
provided it, and he arranged for them to lodge with 
kind matrons who treated them as their own children*™. 
Furthermore, he reasoned that the boys needed capable | 
teachers, men of sound learning, and of character, men 
who would try to win their love, and refrain from any 
kind of punishment until their friendly admonition had 
failed utterly’. They should be university men, if 
possible. Hence we find Groote busy at work in the 
Yssel valley, trying to secure comfortable quarters for 
the homeless, and capable teachers for all. At Deventer, 
Zwolle, and Kampen he cultivated the friendship of both 
teachers and their employers*’®. The most intimate 
friend he seems ever to have had was John Cele, the 
teacher at Zwolle from 1374 or 1375 to 1417. “These 
two men were one heart and one soul’, says Thomas 
a Kempis*®’. Partly through Groote’s influence Cele 
obtained his position as rector of the city school at 


— 


GERARD GROOTE 37 


Zwolle. At first he had not been inclined to teach, but 
Groote showed him the crying need of education for all 
classes of men and women, particularly for the clergy’*’’. 
“How are these mento instruct the masses’, he would 

often’ remark, “if they have no knowledge to give, their 
_ brains being empty and void of all sound learning’***? 
Cele’s business was to teach. When after some time he 
decided to enter a monastery, where life would be much 
easier for him, Groote did not rest till he had persuaded 
him to continue teaching’*®. He urged him to go to 
Prague, to study at the university, while at the same time 
he found a substitute for him at Zwolle**. The reforms 
introduced into the schools of Zwolle and Deventer were 
therefore the direct outcome of Groote’s educational 
activities. Their history will be treated further in the 
following chapter. | 


We have followed Groote’s activities as student, 
scholar, reformer, and educator. His career as the ac- 
complished son of a wealthy magistrate, his experiences 
as a holder of two prebends, the conversion which came 
to him in 1374, these and other factors we have en- 
deavored to place in their proper light. He made a great 
impression on the men and women of his time, as the 
following eulogies show. 

William de Sarvarvilla, cantor of the University of 
Paris, wrote in a letter addressed to Pope Urban VI, 
which induced the latter to grant Groote a license to 
preach, shortly before he died: “Truly he was ‘The 
Great’, for in his knowledge of all the liberal sciences, 
both natural and moral, of civil law, canon law, and 


38 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of theology, he was second to no one in the world, and 
all these branches of learning were united in him. He 
was a man of such saintliness and gave so good an 
example of the mortification of the flesh, his contempt 
for the world, his brotherly love for all, his zeal for 
the salvation of souls, his effectual preaching, his repro- 
bation and hatred of wickedness, his withstanding of 
heretics, his enforcement of the canon law against those 
that broke the vow of chastity, his conversion to the 
spiritual life of divers men and women who had former- 
ly lived according to the world, and his loyalty to our . 
Lord Urban VI, — in all those things I say he gave so 
good an example, that many thousands of men testify 

to the belief that is in them that he was not less great 
in these virtues than he was in the aforesaid sciences’?”. 
William Vornken, prior of Windesheim, calls Groote 
the “Fountain of the Devotio Moderna’, and adds: 
“The fathers of the former congregation say, Through 
what act of grace or miracle came it to pass that as 
master Gerard Groote was preaching and sowing .the 
seed everywhere, there were added to him so suddenly 
and unexpectedly men of such kind and so great, for 
these were of one mind with him, and every one of them 
in each city and place burned with the zeal with which 
he also burned to exhort and convert a people that was 
stiff-necked. O happy day on which that great Gerard 
was born amongst us, for he was the fount and source 
whence flowed the waters of salvation to our land, so 
that what before his time had been parched became a 
pool, and the thirsty land, springs of water’***. Thomas 
a Kempis claims that Groote “illuminated the whole 
country with his life, words, ways, and doctrine’’*™. 

In 1424 John Vos of Heudsen, prior of Windesheim, 
and leader of the “New Devotion”, said on his death- bed 


GERARD GROOTE 39 


to the monks of his monastery and the Brethren of the 
Common Life from Deventer, Zwolle, and Hulsbergen 
(near Hattem, also in the Yssel country): “Groote was 
the first father of this our reformation, the source and 
origin of the New Devotion; he was an apostle in this 
country who kindled fires of religious fervor in the 
cold hearts of men, and drew them to God’’®*, John 
Busch, who had been sent from the Yssel valley to 
Erfurt, Magdeburg, Hildesheim, and other cities of 
central Germany, where he helped to reform many a 
monastery, also called Groote the fountain-head of the 
“Devotio Moderna’, or “New Devotion’’®*. This same 
opinion was expressed by Ruysbroeck’s biographer at 
Groenendaal’*’. Then we have the series of biographies 
written in Dutch, which describe the lives of Groote and 
his followers at Deventer. In the chapter devoted to 
Groote it is set down: “All religious fervor in this 
country for one hundred miles around was caused by 
master Gerard’’*®*, And when the news of Groote’s 
death reached the convent of Weesp near Amsterdam, 
a devout sister wrote the following notice in her manu- 
script: “Gerard Groote, with his holy life and example, 
has enlightened the whole bishopric of Utrecht”*®. 

It is obvious that the men and women of the late — 
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries who were of 
the “New Devotion’, or Christian Renaissance, con- 
sidered Gerard Groote their spiritual father. He was 
in fact the founder of the Brotherhood of the Common 
Life and the Windesheim Congregation, which instituted 
the only lasting reforms of the whole fifteenth century, 
corrected the Vulgate, translated parts of the Bible, sent 
thousands uporr thousands of religious books throughout 
Western Europe, reformed schools and_text-books, 
comforted the sick, consoled the afflicted, fed the poor, 


40 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


lodged the homeless, and composed that well-nigh perfect 
fruit of Christian mysticism: “De Imitatione Christi’, 
or “Imitation of Christ’. 

To conclude, Gerard Groote, as founder of the Chris- 
tian Renaissance, became the spiritual father of all the 
men educated by the Brethren of the Common Life and 
by their pupils, such as Thomas a Kempis, Gansfort, 
Erasmus, Dringenberg, Hegius, Murmellius, Agricola, 
Beatus Rhenanus, Wimpheling, Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, 
Calvin, and Loyola, as we shall see in the following — 
chapters. 


CHAPTER II 
THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Among Groote’s followers at Deventer and elsewhere 
three groups or classes may be distinguished. They all 
had decided to change their lives, but many among them 
preferred to remain at home, where they could live just 
as religious a life, they said, as in a monastery or as 
members of a definitely organized society or brother- 
hood. To this class belonged the pious women who 
lodged so many poor school boys at Deventer, Zwolle, 
and several other places. But soon we lose sight of these 
unorganized little bands. Many of them became affiliated 
later with the Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life, 
who constituted the second class of Groote’s disciples; 
or they joined the third class, namely the Augustinian 
Canons and Canonesses Regular of the Windesheim 
Congregation. It is to the last two groups, accordingly, 
that the following pages are devoted. 


I 


On the 21st of September, 1374, Groote ceded the use 
of his house to some poor women’. Five years later he 
drew up a constitution for the little society’, in which 
he clearly set forth the reason why he had asked these 
women to live in his house. Not to found a new monastic 
order, he wrote, had they come to live here, or a beguin- 
age, but simply to find a place where they might worship 
God in peace. Only those could secure admittance who 
were not bound by monastic vows; nor were they expect- 

41 


42 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


ed to take such vows on entering the house. They should 
all be free to leave if they chose, though they could not 
re-enter, after once having taken their departure. All 
the inmates of the house would remain members of the 
local parish church, just as all other laymen. Their 
clothes should in no respect be different from those of 
the other women in the city, for they were neither nuns 
nor beguines. One might even be a member of the 
society without living in the ‘“Meester-Geertshuis”, or 
Master Gerard’s house, at all. At first they had one 
matron, later two*. The matrons were to act as treasurers 
of the house, and would have authority to make all the 
members perform manual labor. Their orders were 
expected to be promptly obeyed. In case of ill-behavior 
the matrons would consult with two other sisters as to 
the form of punishment for breach of discipline. The 
offender would in most cases lose her share in the com- 
mon savings. But if more serious offences were com- 
mitted, such as theft, stubbornness, or too great a 
familiarity with men, the guilty person would have to 
be expelled*. After Groote’s death the city council of 
Deventer would be asked to deal with such cases’. During 
the first few years, when the new society counted but 
a limited number of members, the two matrons took 
care of all the business transactions, such as buying 
supplies, matters of discipline, and supervision of the 
sisters’ daily tasks. Later a division of labor was created. 
A provisor was chosen, and in 1383 Groote appointed 
John van den Gronde as the first rector. A procurator 
was appointed in 1435 and the various tasks of the 
sisters were also supervised after Groote’s death by 
members specifically directed by the superiors’. 

The constitution of the “House of Master Gerard” 
further stated that the members were to live soberly, 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 43 


wear simple clothes, avoid familiar intercourse with men, 
and restrict their visits to a limit of eight days and a 
distance of not more than ten miles. No one would be 
expected to cede her property, on entering the house; 
the sisters would all work in common and share the 
expenses together, while the income would be equally 
divided. Every member of the house who was able to 
work would be expected to contribute her share of 
manual labor’, for Groote did not want the sisters to 
beg under any circumstances®. Each member, however, 
was to perform those tasks for which she was specially 
fitted by nature. Soon the sisters became great adepts 
in agricultural pursuits; they had a flourishing dairy 
business, and many of them earned neat little sums 
through their skill in sewing, knitting, weaving, spinning, 
and similar purely feminine employments’. 

In composing this constitution for the Sisters of the 
Common Life, Groote prepared the way for a mightier 
organization, known later as the Brethren of the. Com- 
mon Life. Shortly after he left the Carthusian monastery 
of Monnikhuizen near Arnhem, he had succeeded in 
recruiting a number of devout followers. In 1380 a 
man joined them who was destined to become the leader | 
of the “New Devotion’. This man was called Florentius 
Radewijns. Born at Leerdam*® in the year 1350", he 
had gone to Prague in 1374", and received a master’s 
degree in 1378*°. Thereupon he had gone home to 
Gorinchem™, where he lived with his parents till the 
news of Groote’s fame as preacher reached him*®, This 
must have happened in the year 1380, for Groote had 
not yet left the Yssel valley*®. So much impressed was 
he by Groote’s imposing personality that he decided to 
imitate him in all things’’. One of the first things he 
did was to give up his prebend at Utrecht, in order to 


44 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


be nearer to Groote. At Deventer he became vicar of 
the altar of St. Paul in St. Lebwin’s Church’. 

It was in Radewijns’ vicarage that Groote’s twelve 
disciples used to meet, though not all of them actually 
lived in this house*®. When did these disciples begin to 
live the common life? One writer thinks in 13727°; that 
is, two years before Groote’s conversion. Another one 
sets down a later date: 1381 or 1382”*. Still another one 
places the date several years after Groote’s death”; while 
the latest “authority” on the Brethren of the Common 
Life claims that the brothers did not even have a rector 
until thirty or forty years after the organization was 
firmly established’’. 

The sources, however, show plainly that Groote, 
shortly after his return from the monastery of Monnik- 
huizen near Arnhem, began to preach in the cities along 
the Yssel. Among his numerous followers there were 
twelve who clung quite faithfully to the master, except 
one of *them, called a backslider, and traitor’*. Groote 
advised some of them to live together in one house, 
where they could exhort each other, work and_ pray. 
together — in short, serve God with greater chance of 
success**. We also read that Groote had several boys 
and young men copy books for him. The boys were 
often invited to his house. He purposely paid them a 
little each time so that they would have to come quite 
often and have a talk with him. It was not these boys 
whom Groote urged to live together in one house. And 
not only Groote invited school boys to his house, but 
also some of his followers at Zwolle and Deventer, most 
of whom were soon to become known as Brethren of 
the Common Life. Hence the founders of the new 
organization were not those school boys who were asked 
to Groote’s house from time to time. The fact is, there 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 45 


were also girls among the young people entertained by 
Groote’s friends”®. Moreover, the sources do not at all 
tell us that these boys and girls who were given financial 
or other assistance by Groote and his followers founded 
the congregation or brotherhood, called Brethren of 
the Common Life*’. It is only some modern critics who 
make that assertion, and wrongly so. 

Among the twelve disciples at Deventer there were 
several copyists, who made their living by copying books, 
and some of them, we saw, were living in Radewijns’ 
vicarage. Now these copyists wanted to join their funds. 
Accordingly, Radewijns came to Groote one day and 
said to him: “Master, what harm should there be in our 
uniting our weekly earnings, and living the common 
life’? “Unite your funds’? Groote exclaimed in sur- 
prise. “Impossible, for the mendicant monks would 
surely attack us for trying to found a new monastic 
order’”*. But as Radewijns would not give up his plan 
so readily, Groote finally answered that in case they 
would in the near future lead the common life, he would 
gladly be their leader and instructor”. 

Should one call Florentius Radewijns then the founder 
of the Brethren of the Common Life? For did not he 
suggest to Groote the idea of uniting the funds? It 
should be remembered, however, that Groote had com- 
posed the constitution for the Sisters of the Common 
Life before Radewijns had ever heard of him. And it 
was Groote himself who had stipulated that the sisters 
should combine. their wages and share the common 
expenses. For this reason the mendicants had already 
attacked him. 

He had even found it necessary to defend them in a 
sermon at Deventer, together with the beguines, who 
also united their earnings®. When the men in Rade- 


46 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


wijns’ house wanted to lead a life similar to that of the 
Sisters of the Common Life, he naturally hesitated, and 
pointed out to them the great danger of attack from his 
enemies, the mendicant monks, who were living a life of 
indolence and hated Groote for his love of poverty and 
manual labor. But his hesitation did not last long, for . 
he knew well that the Canon Law would protect them. 
He mapped out their future mode of life, drew up a 
schedule for their daily tasks and their religious exer-. 
cises*, and would undoubtedly have made further 
arrangements, if the hand of death had not suddenly 
intervened, as it did on the twentieth of August, 1384. 
Groote was indeed the founder of the new brotherhood, 
though his plans were only materialized after his 
death”. 


II 


On the afternoon of the twentieth of August, 1384, a 
pathetic scene was enacted at Deventer. In one of the 
houses on the Bagynestraat a group of men were stand- 
ing around Groote’s bed. Their beloved master was 
dying. They saw his life ebbing fast and trembled. And 
he himself was conscious of their dismay. There was 
a long silence. But at last he opened his eyes and spoke: 
“My friends”, he said, “do not fear, and let not your 
hearts be troubled. You will not have to give up your 
present mode of life. In order that you may protect 
your temporal possessions I advise you to build a 
monastery, where those among you best fit for the 
monastic life may find shelter and perform their work 
in peace, while at the same time it will protect the others 
who prefer to remain in the world”. ‘But which order 
shall we join’? they asked. “The Augustinian”, he 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 47 


answered, ‘‘for their rules are not so harsh as those of 
the Carthusians and Cistercians’’**. 

Groote also gave a last message to the Sisters of the 
Cormmon Life. He had regretted the fact that only 
middle-aged women were willing to join the little society. 
But better times would come, he thought. “When I shall 
have departed hence”, was his final remark, “I shall 
send some little flowers from above, benignant spirits, 
which will swell your numbers’, 

Thus we are told by John Busch and Thomas a 
Kempis, the two most reliable historians of the Windes- 
heim circle. Their narratives do in no respect contradict 
each other, as some writers have thought, who failed 
to read Thomas a Kempis very carefully**. On the con- 
trary, they are supported by other trustworthy sources. 
It was not John Busch, for seven years the pupil and 
assistant of John Cele at Zwolle, who indulged in flights 
of the imagination, but those modern scholars who insist 
on overthrowing the best sources we have. Groote, it 
appears, had openly attacked Bartholomew of Dordrecht, 
a mendicant monk, and the clergy at Utrecht besides. 
They were furious. Moreover, Groote, as founder of 
the Sisters of the Common Life, had instituted a semi- 
monastic organization which was looked upon by the 
mendicant monks as a hostile rival of their order. He 
was also translating parts of the Bible into the verna- 
cular, preached against indolence, abhorred all forms of 
_ begging, and bitterly denounced those monks and priests 
who failed to perform their duty. Last but not least, he 
had a group of disciples who were holding regular meet- 
ings in the vicarage of Radewijns. One half of these 
disciples were actually living with the vicar. They copied 
books for Groote and for others, and were surely going 
to live the common life. Perhaps they had already given 


48 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


up their private property. At any rate, they were found- 
ing a monastic order, it seemed, without taking the 
customary vows, or asking the pope for his sanction. 

Whenever these copyists were seen on the streets, they 
were addressed as Beghards and Lollards, hooted at, 
and commended to burn in hell, or some other suitable 
place of torture. The common people, and those among: 
the lower classes who frequented inns or lounged about. 
the streets all day, were instigated by some monks to. 
slander Groote’s disciples. These monks composed songs. 
in which Groote was mocked and ridiculed**. Then there 
were many laymen as well as clergymen who had attend- 
ed Groote’s sermons, and had felt some compunction 
about their evil ways, but finally had decided to ignore 
Groote’s appeals. They gradually moved away farther 
’ and farther from the path so persistently pointed out to 
them by Groote. Finally the clergy resented his attacks. 
For it seemed to them as if he had singled them out for 
reproval. Groote had advised them to give a large share 
of their possessions to the poor, to visit the sick and 
afflicted, to take care of the homeless, and to shun all 
forms of indolence, intemperance, and immorality. The 
man was insane, they said to each other. And look at 
those copyists: always writing books on religion, and 
never ready to visit us in the tavern and the dance-hall. 
Do you think we would lead such miserable lives as: 
those wretched copyists are doing? Thus they argued,. 
glad to find support among other members of the clergy, 
both secular and regular. 

Groote was aware of these things. He had already 
told Radewijns to act with caution. As the people grew 
bolder each day, and the mendicants increased their 
attacks, the situation began to look serious. The brethren, 
not being protected by monastic vows, were uneasy and 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 49 


held daily consultations in Radewijns’ vicarage. Finally 
they came to the conclusion that a monastery should be 
built where a part of them could live and by their 
example lead and protect the others. They were to join 
the Augustinian Canons Regular*’. | 

But Groote’s end was near, as we have seen. Though 
he must be considered the founder both of the Brethren 
of the Common Life and the Windesheim Congregation, 
he left his work unfinished. Would he also leave his 
disciples without a leader? Great was their affliction in 
having to lose so kind and so learned a master. But as 
he looked up for the last time at his faithful followers, 
now only eleven in number, his eyes rested upon the one 
he loved best. ‘I will not leave you defenseless’, he 
said, “I appoint Florentius as vour new leader. He will 
instruct you, and help you, as I have tried to do”. And 
then he departed. 


Ii 


So highly in fact did Groote respect his faithful friend 
that he had urged him to become a priest®**. As for 
himself, we know, he thought he was too great a sinner 
to join the ranks of the priesthood. But Radewijns was 
endowed with special gifts of devotion. No one was 
kinder than he to the poor, the sick, and the afflicted. He 
often went to visit the suffering. Many a meal he was 
wont to send to certain famishing families in the slums 
of Deventer. A list was kept by him of all the sick people 
in the city®®. The feeble-bodied and all others who 
through no fault of their own were in need of material 
assistance, he supplied with food and clothing, and the 
poorer class of school boys with pens, ink, and paper. 
One lenten season there was great scarcity of food and 
of work, so that an unusually large number of poor 


50 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


people came to Radewijns for help; whereupon he, 
_ finding himself unable to give assistance to so many 
at once, persuaded his friends and followers to add one 
hour a day to their work for the period of one week. 
The extra money thus saved he handed over to the 
“Overseer of the Poor’ at Deventer. During the month 
of May he was accustomed to gather herbs for the sick. 
He would invite all those people to his house who were 
afflicted with ulcers, sores, and other skin diseases. They 
were then given a bath in warm water, perfumed with 
aromatic herbs. A clean bed was also prepared for each 
patient, where they were told to rest themselves, after 
first having received a cup of wine*. 

Radewijns did not even shrink from lepers, and to the 
maimed and deformed he was particularly kind. “I once 
knew a leper’, says Thomas a Kempis, “who used to 
abide outside the walls of the city. Florentius would 
often sit beside him and talk to him’. “I have seen’, 
he continues, “one blind of an eye, and one lame of one 
foot, who were both converted by him’. At times he 
was consulted by so many people that he had no time - 
even to go to church**. And who was there who could 
comfort the people as did Radewijns? Involuntarily 
their hearts were filled with new hope and happiness 
at one touch of his hand, or a single glance from those 
starry eyes which bespoke tender sympathy. The moment 
one approached him, one’s troubles and anxieties would 
suddenly subside. What was there in this singularly 
attractive person to shed about him as it were a halo 
of almost celestial felicity? Was he‘so great an orator? 
Did he perhaps cast the hypnotic-spell of fiery eloquence 
upon the fascinated crowds? 

Among all the men Thomas a Kempis had met before 
he wrote the “Imitation”, Radewijns, he thought, was 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE © 51 


the one who had taught him most about the Cross of 
Christ. We should learn of him, Christ had said, by 
imitating him**. And how could we imitate him best? 
By taking his yoke upon us, the yoke of humility, and 
charity. One should try to sympathize with the poor 
and afflicted, visit the sick, comfort orphans and widows, 
and be ready to perform the most humble tasks at 
home**. We should never seek our own good, Radewijns 
used to say, but rather consider only our neighbor’s 
welfare. Thus one might become a Christian, in his 
opinion. And Radewijns was wont to practise what he 
preached. He was always ready to take an active share 
in his neighbor’s sorrows. Naturally, his feeling of pity 
was instinctively felt by all who came near him**. Thomas 
a Kempis himself had often experienced a thrill of 
rapture simply in being near his teacher and master. A 
few words from Radewijns’ lips would comfort all. 
“This”, says Thomas a Kempis, “I have often tried 
and experienced myself’**. Is it any wonder that 
Thomas a Kempis, who had_ spent several years in 
Radewijns’ presence, often used to look upon his stay 
at Deventer with a feeling of reverence and intense 
gratitude? Florentius Radewijns was a man who lived 
the ideals of the “Imitation of Christ’. Whether he 
formulated those ideals we shall consider later. 

But Radewijns was also a famous preacher. From 
far and near the people used to come to his house, where 
he or one of his followers addressed them in their own 
language*®. These sermons were held in the open air, 
and particularly on holidays the crowds that assembled 
in the garden of the vicarage were quite large. Gradually 
it became a custom among the people to write down 
parts of Radewijns’ discourses, for they were so easy 
to understand and so practical*’. He spoke to them in 


52 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


their own dialect, unadorned with pompous foreign 
quotations. Had not Christ done the same in his day? 
Had he preached in a foreign language? Why should 
Radewijns then employ Latin or fine speeches in re- 
minding the people of Christ’s message to his followers? 
Plain speech, simple words he used. And these were kept 
alive in the shops, the mills, and the farm-houses. 

Though fully aware of his duties as a member of 
society, Radewijns loved the contemplative life. “I often | 
used to look at him in the choir”, says Thomas a Kempis, 
“and whenever I saw him, I was careful not to chatter, 
so impressed I was by his great religious fervor. When 
he was walking on the street, he seldom would notice 
' the greetings of his friends, being engrossed in medi- 
tation. Scarcely five or six words would he speak at 
our supper-table. But when he was alone, then his mind 
became illuminated with so pure a light of divine radiance 
that whether he was reading the Old Testament or the 
New Testament, always some mystic interpretation of 
every passage came to him’. 

As a faithful follower of Christ, Radewijns loved 
the simple life, wearing plain garments even after he 
had been ordained priest, avoiding dainty food, and 
reading only such books as might aid him in improving 
his character. His followers he exhorted to do the same. 
Novices and other inexperienced people should avoid the 
study of subtle questions, he used to say*®. But in one 
respect he failed to grasp the true meaning of Christ’s 
teachings. ‘He did not consider with due care the weak- 
ness of his body”, Thomas 4 Kempis wisely remarks®°. 
As a result of his excessive fasting, he ruined his 
digestive organs, losing all taste for different foods, mis- 
taking wine for oil or beer®*. Often his friend Everard 
Eza of Almelo, one of Gerard Groote’s most influential 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 53 


disciples, would warn him of his folly, and cure him for 
the time being®’. Fortunately Everard induced him to 
take more rest and to work more often in the open air®’. 
He had to admit, however, that if it had not been for 
Radewijns’ prayers and the grace of God, he must have 
died long before his time™*. 

In spite of his weak body Radewijns had an imposing 
personality. His presence in the choir was sufficient to 
banish all jesting®®. Thomas a Kempis himself did not 
stir when he was near. Says Thomas: “Even though 
he were not looking at me, yet I did not dare to talk in 
the choir, so I feared and respected his presence. Once 
he came up to me, to sing with me out of my book. 
I stood as if rooted to the ground and did not dare to 
move’’®. There were people who fearlessly insulted 
Groote’s disciples after his death, but not those living 
in Radewijns’ house; and although a few condemned 
the habits of Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, 
they nevertheless all agreed in praising Radewijns”’. 

His knowledge of human nature was remarkable. 
Each one of his followers he treated in such manner as 
to stimulate his heart and mind. When reproach was 
needed he would freely employ it, but if one could be 
won through gentleness, praise, or jest, he was glad to 
employ those means also’®. He was not weak in his 
kindness, or proud in his coolness. Great talents he had 
none, nor was there any particular virtue or vice observ- 
able in his character. The man’s whole personality had 
undergone a harmonious development. Thoughtful and 
prudent, painstaking, calm, persevering, free from violent 
passions, and devoid of special talents, he was always 
composed, a perfect master of his lower self, harsh to 
his own nature, but filled with love and sympathy for 
his neighbor. Such was the man appointed by Groote 


54 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


as the leader of the “New Devotion’, according to his 
biographers. 

The works he wrote himself enable us to give a few 
more particulars. Radewijns was neither a scholar nor 
a great author in our sense of the word. Many para- 
graphs in his writings appear to have been copied from 
the Fathers and the works of medieval mystics. One of 
his writings, called “Omnes inquit artes’, is merely a 
collection of excerpts; and the only real composition 
from his hand, known as the “Tractatulus de Spiritual- 
ibus Excercitiis”, or “Treatise on Spiritual Exercises”, 
contains many a sentence copied verbally from Bonaven- 
tura, Cassianus, and other writers. But they do show 
us what sort of a thinker Radewijns was; they reflect 
his theological and philosophical views. 

Our aim and final destination, Radewijns writes, is 
the kingdom of God. The road which leads to that goal 
is purity of heart®®. All our labors, our watching, fasting, 
meditation, prayer, and reading .of the Scriptures are 
only means employed by us to eradicate vice, ere we 
ascend toward the plane of perfect love. And as ‘we 
advance on our road we shall be able to resuscitate the 
slumbering memories of the spirit — memories of a glori- 
ous past and of a still more glorious future. In keeping 
steadily before our eyes the destination at the end of our 
road, we shall continue to exercise our spiritual nature, 
lest our first ardor should cool. Thesé spiritual exercises 
will finally enable our weary souls to enter the harbors 
of rest and peace, after a long voyage across the seas 
of time”. We, as pilgrims, wandering aimlessly in the 
desert of time, should seek the joys of heaven upon 
earth’, which can be done most effectively by checking 
the desires of our mortal bodies, for the way of the spirit 
is life, and the way of the flesh is death®*. 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 55 


As the pilgrim advances upon the high-way of this 
mortal life, faint memories come to him of a lost 
heritage. Sometimes, when he pauses on his way to look 
about him, he catches feeble glimpses of his happy past 
before the fall of man. At such moments it is the voice” 
of the spirit which urges him to turn his steps homeward 
once more, by purifying his heart from the stains made 
by sin. For the purer his heart, the clearer his memory 
will become; he will then regain that marvelous secret 
of immortal life: love. The two chief ends of all religi- 
ous or spiritual exercises, therefore, are the purging of 
our heart from sin, and the cultivation of love®*. Perfect 
love is never acquired by any one, except he first has 
cleansed his heart from vice and supplanted evil by 
virtue**. Consequently the more successful we are in 
purging our hearts, the greater our love will become’. 
Our final aim, therefore, is love; everything else is but 
a means to reach that end®’. Through the Fall our mind 
or reason has become blind to the truth, our will per- 
verted, our memories unstable**. Man is a depraved 
being, but through Christ’s sacrifice he is not hopelessly 
lost, nay he may gain a better fate than those spirits 
which are not allowed to enter mortal bodies. But he 
must act, although his soul has already been saved 
through faith. For Christ’s sacrifice, supplemented by 
our personal faith, does not purify our heart nor reform 
our mind. 

All virtue, says Radewijns, is contained in love’’, He 
compares man with a musical instrument; man in his 
present state is out of tune with the Infinite’. When 
one is converted, one’s improper and imperfect affections 
or emotions are changed into pure love; one will then 
love God for God’s own sake”. All our reading, medi- 
tations, and prayers should be concentrated chiefly upon 


‘ 


56 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the abolition of sin, thus making room for love’*. Love, 
we must remember, is worth more than the negative 
attitude of fighting vice; it is the end, the crown of 
human existence. Nothing but love can lead us to the 
heavenly country’. Love for God in the first place, 
then love for our neighbor. We must strive to promote 
mutual friendships, practise modesty, suppress hatred, 
jealousy, and spite, and be careful in admonishing others. 
Obedience is the greatest virtue: it perfects our humility. . 
It is in fact very sinful to seek one’s own welfare rather 
than that of one’s neighbor”. 

Radewijns urges his readers to exercise themselves 
in the acquisition of brotherly love’’, to read the Bible, 
to pray often, to confess their sins, to perform their 
daily tasks with alacrity, and to cultivate a healthful 
discipline of mind and morals’’. Manual labor should 
be performed by all’*, but not all forms of manual labor 
were fitted in his opinion to favor the practice of 
spiritual exercises; those which resembled the spiritual 
exercises in kind were preferable, such as copying religi- 
ous writings’’. No one should study to acquire knowl- 
edge for its own sake, for there is no true learning except 
that which teaches us to acquire love through the con- 
quest of evil®*. The whole Bible was written for one 
end only; if one succeeds, and remains steadfast, one 
will not need to read the Bible any longer®. There surely 
can be no use in studying difficult passages in the Bible, 
according to Radewijns”. He thought no human brain 
could grasp the meaning of those passages, unless one 
were aided by the Spirit. 

Somewhere within our inner selves a mysterious force 
resides, called conscience. It should be our daily care 
to stimulate this force into action. Usually it suffers 
from neglect, grows feebler and feebler till its voice is 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 57 


but faintly distinguished. Know thyself, Socrates had 
said, and Radewijns repeated this message. Examine 
your inner nature, he wrote, and arouse your conscience 
from its long slumber**. Pray, watch, and work, lest 
the force of habit overwhelm you. One should meditate 
frequently on the ultimate approach of death**, the 
sufferings of Christ, and the final judgment*®. He also 
gives directions for fighting various vices, which he 
copied largely from the works of Cassianus**. We 
should also seek the blessings of solitude and silence, for 
when human voices are absent, God will come to talk 
with us. Especially should we seek a few moments of 
this conversation with God shortly before retiring at 
night*’. 

Virtue, says Radewijns, can only be acquired through 
grace. We of our own selves can never overcome evil, 
so low have we fallen. Even our good works are not 
wholly good, but mixed with imperfections of various 
kinds**. If we humiliate ourselves, however, as Christ 
once did, this grace will come to us in abundant measure. 
And how can we best cultivate this virtue of humility? 
By frankly admitting how depraved we have become 
since the fall of man, how prone to evil, how powerless 
in fighting vice; by patiently bearing with accusations, 
insults, and calumnies heaped upon us by slanderous 
tongues, and by giving all the credit to God, if perchance 
we should succeed in overcoming vice*®. Thus we shall 
find love, the greatest of all blessings*’. Love will bring 
peace, and much inward joy, though not unalloyed with 
grief about our continued shortcomings”. When once 
this love has come to us, we shall seek to draw more 
souls to Christ, which we can do most successfully on 
holy days, when people have more leisure and are in 
a better position to listen to our appeals”. 


58 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


After the purgative way comes the illuminative way. 
Man will then begin to understand God’s tenderness to 
him®*, and will fathom the mystery of the fall of man 
and of his redemption through Christ. Christ’s sacrifice 
on the cross is in fact the greatest event in the history 
of the human race**. No one can realize this more per- . 
fectly than he who has felt the load of sin gradually 
being lifted from his weary back and shoulders. With 
tears of joy he will look upon that central cross at. 
Golgotha, where all at once the whole guilt of humanity 
was paid for, where the redemption of all souls was 
bought at a terrific price. Christ our savior and example, 
the chief factor in every man’s life, should therefore 
have the chief and best place in every man’s life®®. Thus 
wrote he who for sixteen years was the leader of the 
“New Devotion’, or Christian Renaissance. 


IV 


In the year of Groote’s death the religious revival 
inaugurated by him had gained a foot-hold in those 
places where he himself had preached, or where his 
‘followers had begun to continue his work, namely at 
Deventer, Zwolle, Doesburg, Zutphen, Kampen, Almelo, 
Utrecht, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, etc. But among 
all these cities and villages only those situated nearest 
to the Yssel valley succeeded in retaining the master’s 
best thoughts. Naturally it was Deventer and Zwolle 
which at once assumed a leading position in the history 
of the “New Devotion”, and kept the fires of religious 
zeal burning, when all the others gradually lost their 
- first ardor. 

During Groote’s life-time the question of the common 
life had been brought up for discussion. Groote had 
assured his followers that he would gladly become their 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE — 59 


leader and protector, in case they should decide to follow 
the mode of life practised by the women in his own 
house at Deventer. Some of them were to build a 
monastery, he had said, while the others would remain 
at Deventer. The monastery was not built at once, how- 
ever. Two years elapsed before the brethren felt the 
need of seeking protection there. For they had not yet 
begun to lead the common life, wherefore the mendicant 
monks left them comparatively at ease, seeing that their 
society did not resemble a monastic organization. The 
brethren used to meet in a very informal way. Some of 
them were living with Radewijns in the vicarage, but 
not a few merely came to visit at stated times. Not long 
after Groote’s death an important event took place. 
Radewijns had been accustomed to keep charge of the 
money earned by the men living in his house. When he 
noticed their indifference to merely temporal advantages, 
such as wealth, fame, and honor, he decided to unite 
their wages, and make of them one common fund*®. 
From that day they were Brethren of the Common Life. 
The exact’ date of this is not clear; it naturally must 
have happened between Groote’s death and the founda- 
tion of the new monastery. For they built that monastery 
because they had- offended their rivals, the mendicant 
monks, by founding a semi-monastic organization, hav- 
ing united their funds and shared their expenses in 
common. It had now become a vital necessity for them 
to build the monastery, where some could live and all 
would find protection®’. Since Groote died on August 
20, 1384, and the monastery was founded in 1386, we 
may assume that the common life was begun before 
1387, and probably during the fall of 1384 or the year 
1385, inasmuch as Groote had drawn up definite rules 
in August or July, 1384. 


\ 


60 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


There were at this time ten men living in the vicarage 
with Radewijns at Deventer®**. An important character 
_was John of Huxaria or Hoxter. The brethren were so 
impressed by this man’s religious fervor that for a time 
they were uncertain whether they should elect him as 
their first rector or Radewijns, the acknowledged leader 
of the “New Devotion”; finally they chose Radewijns”’. 
According to the obituary of the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life at Deventer’, John of Hoxter died on the 
7th of January, 1387**. Consequently the brethren must 
have chosen their choice before this date*°’. 

The next event of importance took place in the year 
1391, when the “House of Florentius’” was founded, 
the first real house of the Brethren of the Common Life, 
and named after the first rector, Florentius Radewijns. 
Till 1391 the brethren had been living in the vicarage 
with Radewijns. As their number increased from year 
to year, they finally decided to move to more comfortable 
quarters. There was a devout lady, called Zwedera of 
Runen, the wife of a nobleman, who had heard of their 
plight. She offered them a house and lot, situated in the - 
Pontsteeg, in exchange for two small buildings in the 
Enghe Straat. This house in the Pontsteeg was torn 
down and replaced by a fine new building, the ‘House 
of Florentius”. Most of the brethren now moved from 
the vicarage to the “House of Florentius’’, taking their 
books and furniture with them’. 

Still another house was founded during the life of 
Radewijns: the “Nova Domus’’, “Domus Pauperum”, 
or the new house for poor clerks. It was built in 1398', 
and intended for the poorer class of pupils attending 
the cathedral school**®. For the Brethren of the Common 
Life faithfully continued Groote’s policy in helping poor 
boys and girls to get an education. Radewijns and his 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 61 


followers often invited them to their house, providing 
them with material and spiritual sustenance*’®. “Behold”, 
Radewijns wrote in 1398, “we take these youths into 
our house, inexperienced as they are, changeable, having 
as yet no definite aims or exerting much will power, but 
they are tractable and pliable. Oh what would happen, 
if one, or two, or three of us would persuade these boys 
to work, and teach them discipline, and humility’*°’? 
Many devout burghers at Deventer would take an interest 
in the younger boys, due to Radewijns’ influence*®*. One 
Lambert van Galen always had eight of them in his 
house***’, and a certain Bye van Dunen also took care 
of eight boys’®. These boys were all consigned to the 
people by the brethren in the “House of Florentius’’*™. 
For only after 1400 did the Brethren of the Common 
Life take in boys who had not yet finished their work 
at the cathedral school’. 

Upon the whole we may say that the brethren during 
the rectorate of Hlorentius Radewijns conscientiously 
tried to imitate the lives of the Apostles as set forth in 
the New Testament’®. It was the simple life they 
led**, a life of work and devotional exercises’®. Says 
Badius Ascensius, the celebrated humanist and printer, 
‘who had received his early education from the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Ghent: 


“All were to approach as near as possible the life 
of the Apostles and of the primitive church of Christ, 
so that in the whole congregation there should be one 
heart, and that no one should consider or call anything 
his own. No one should seek outside the house the 
cure of souls, ecclesiastical benefices, or worldly oc- 
cupations for the sake of gain; but clerics who should 
be found worthy would be promoted to cures that were 


62 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


not too lucrative. All should dwell together in chastity 
and poverty, and should be clad in that manner of 
dress which Gerard Groote had approved. No one 
should beg from door to door; and in order that they 
might not be driven to this by want, all should avoid 
idleness, and according to their abilities should tran- 
scribe books, or instruct children. They were to take | 
care that they themselves and all whom they should 
teach, should venerate and worship God with the 
deepest piety. They should love their neighbor with 
due charity, and should assist the poor with alms, 
according to their means. All should observe brotherly 
love. To their superior or spiritual Father in all law- 
ful and just concerns they should yield unquestioning 
obedience, considering that their highest merit con- 
sisted in charity and submission. All earnings accruing 
from their labor in common or in private they should, 
according to the apostolic rule, lay at the feet of the 
Superior, and if perchance they left the Brotherhood, 
they should carry nothing with them’. 


When Thomas a Kempis lived in the house of Rade- 
wijns (1398-1399) there were about twenty inmates, 
three of whom were laymen**’. And in a document of 
the year 1396 we read that there should be at least four 
priests and eight clerics, that is, twelve members belong- 
ing to the clergy; the number of laymen was not speci- 
fied***. Gradually their number increased, for their fame 
soon spread, even into distant countries. Many priests, 
says one biographer, attracted by the rumor of Rade- 
Wijns’ virtues and those of his followers, came to 
Deventer and submitted themselves to Radewijns’ rule, 
laying open to him their hearts. Particularly from West- 
phalia they came in great numbers™®. It was not long 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 63 


before the mendicant monks and their friends heard of 
the growing repute of the Brethren of the Common 
_ Life. Groote’s fear had not been ill-founded. In spite 
of the new monastery they had built, the men at Deven- 
ter who now remained behind, were not sufficiently 
protected, having taken no monastic vows. One of their 
friends and protectors, named John ter Poorten, a 
prominent member of the city council, was publicly 
attacked as “Pope of the Lollards’””°. 

Not satisfied with instigating the people and invent- 
ing sundry unofficial attacks, the Dominicans began to 
look for other ways of harming the brethren. They 
carefully studied the Canon Law and its commentaries, 
thereby hoping to prove that the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life had no right of existence. To live the common 
life without taking monastic vows was a crime, they 
said. No one had a right to found a new religious order 
without the pope’s consent. And here were those up- 
starts at Deventer who had never asked for the pope’s 
consent. They had a rector whom they had decided to 
obey, yet they took no vows of obedience. They earned 
their daily bread with their own hands, had definite 
rules and regulations, read sacred writings in the verna- 
cular, and even held addresses to the people in their 
own language. All this they did without waiting for 
any one’s permission. Surely, so strange and new- 
fangled an institution was an offense to the Church! 

The attacks grew fiercer, as time went on, for the 
jealousy of the mendicant and other monks increased 
in correspondence with the rising power of the new 
brotherhood. The Augustinian Canons Regular of 
Windesheim heard of these attacks. In 1395 they drew 
up a document in which they defended their friends at 
Deventer. The Brethren of the Common Life were 


64 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


virtuous men, they wrote. They taught no heresy of 
any kind, represented no secret societies or lodges, did 
not preach outside of the churches, had assumed no 
rules, no new monastic garments, had taken no new 
vows, and their whole mode of life had been approved 
by Gregory XI’. Pe 5 

This document was not sufficient, however, to stop 
the enemy’s assaults. What was worse, in 1398 another 
enemy appeared in the form of a terrible pestilence. 
William of Vianen first caught the disease. Ten brothers 
were infected and died. They were nursed by John 
Ketel, their pious cook, but he also passed away in 
1398**?, Then the remaining brethren, led by Radewijns, 
decided to leave the city and go to Amersfoort across 
the Veluwe, leaving a few members behind to take care 
of their property at Deventer’**. At Amersfoort the 
brethren continued their work with new energy. They 
had taken several school boys with them, for whom they 
found suitable quarters among Groote’s disciples at 
Amersfoort‘, where the first brethren-house west of 
the Yssel had been founded in 1395*°. Here the men 
from Deventer copied books, and preached to the people 
in the vernacular, especially on holidays’, “instructing 
them by example and doctrine’’*”. But it was not a 
happy time for them. They were now staying far away 
from the home they had built with their own hands and 
means. The attacks of their enemies continued, and the 
pestilence was sweeping one after another to the grave 
in Deventer. True, they were living with friends who 
were hospitable and kind, but still these friends were 
comparative strangers to them. 

A spirit of sadness pervades the letters written by the 
fugitives at Amersfoort to the men at Deventer. ‘Let 
us go and die with them’, says Gerard Zerbolt of Zut- 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE — 65 


phen, one of the brethren who had gone to Amersfoort, 
“or else let them come and die with us, though we are 
able to die here and you to live there. What will life 
be worth to me, after they have passed away’’?*? And 
when they were told that one of their beloved friends 
at home had followed the others to the grave in their 
absence, they were almost overwhelmed with grief’. 
Their next three letters also breathe anguish. The 
brethren appeared to have lost all interest in life, so 
down-cast they were**®. But in their last letter the dawn 
of a new hope breaks. They are expecting to return to 
Deventer soon! “Just as the members of one body all 
suffer together and console each other’’, they now write, 
“so do they also exult in each other’s good fortune. The 
expectation of our return home is a great source of joy 
to us. Florentius is going to Amsterdam soon and when 
he returns, we hope to go back home to you’, 

And what of their other enemies, the mendicant 
monks? Suddenly their attacks were rendered forceless 
by a scholar, who came to their aid at the right moment. 
This new defender of the brethren was Gerard Zerbolt 
of Zutphen, a man of considerable learning and sharp 
insight into all questions pertaining to law and tradition. 
A much greater scholar than Radewijns himself, he was 
more successful in affairs. With a sort of prophetic 
vision he perceived the dangers encircling the new 
brotherhood on all sides, when the brothers themselves 
were scarcely aware of impending trouble. They had 
written a great deal about the sorrows of separation, 
but the dangers from without they could not perceive. 

The crisis came in 1398. Radewijns had been at 
Utrecht and at Amsterdam. The brethren at Deventer 
and Amersfoort were sure of his success in obtaining 
privileges from Frederick van Blankenheim, Bishop of 


66 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Utrecht. But Radewijns had to write home from 
Amersfoort: “The business of the Lord has made no 
progress; wherever we turn we meet with obstacles’**. 
That was all he could say. He now was home-sick. He 
had resolved to leave Amersfoort for Deventer in secret. 
His first attempt was a failure, but finally he succeeded 
in fleeing. Strange though it seems, Radewijns, the 
first rector of the Brethren of the Common Life, for- 
sook his followers in the thick of the fight. He had 
been unequal to his task. How fortunate therefore that 
now his work could be continued by his more vigorous 
disciple. The name of this disciple we seldom read in 
the documents of that time, and the chronicles devote 
only a few pages to the story of his life. He loved to 
sit in his lonely cell, unknown to the world about him. 
But by uniting the best thoughts of Radewijns with the 
scholarly labors of Groote, he became the representative 
of both types of devotion or mysticism: the simple and 
the worldly-wise, the practical and the theoretical, the 
active and the passive. 


Vv 


Gerard Zerbolt was born at Zutphen in the year 
1367***. After attending school in his native city he 
went to a university, probably that of Prague, where he 
studied hard from early dawn till late at night. But he 
does not seem to have stayed there very long, for in 
1384 we find him at Deventer. Radewijns persuaded 
him to become a member of the brotherhood at Deven- 
ter’®*. A born student, he passed nearly all his time in 
his room at the “House of Florentius”, reading “sacred 
writings’, that is, the Bible, the Fathers, the Canon 
Law, and similar works***, He used to be so occupied 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 67 


with his work that he would forget the whole world 
about him, perfectly oblivious to any changés in the 
weather for example. Even at the dinner-table he was 
wont to continue his meditations. As soon as the meal 
was over, however, and the Bible was brought forward, 
he was all attention’*®. This book-worm, the other 
brothers reasoned, should be appointed librarian of their 
house. And Zerbolt, once in possession of Groote’s 
books, together with his learned discourses which might 
be manipulated as a key to the books themselves, soon 
became the foremost scholar among the Brethren of the 
Common Life. Thomas a Kempis was a member of 
the house at that time. Says Thomas: “Many clerics 
used to come to him for advice, asking him to solve 
difficult problems for them. Radewijns often called for 
him when business transactions had to be undertaken 
for the house, and particularly when questions of law 
came up for discussion. Whenever Zerbolt was con- 
fronted with problems too difficult for him. to solve, 
he would write them down and keep them in mind till 
he would meet some learned doctor. The scholars and 
great writers praised him highly for his learning’’**’. 
Thus Zerbolt gradually prepared himself for the struggle 
in which he was to bear the brunt. The struggle lasted 
from 1384-1419, but it was decided in favor of the 
brethren, when Zerbolt collected his arguments in their 
defense — which he used in soliciting the protection of 
important church officials — and arranged them in the 
shape of a treatise, called “(On the Common Life’’**’. 
It was prohibited to found a new monastic order, 
Zerbolt admitted**®, but to live in private houses and 
share one’s expenses with others was quite permissible, 
as it had been customary in the past; it had been 
recommended by the saints of old, and approved by the 


68 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


pope**’. Those chapters in the Canon Law, Zerbolt 
continued, which were directed against the founders of 
new monastic orders, were in no way opposed to the 
common life as such***. What did the words “religious” 
and “religion” imply, he asked, and who might be said 
to be founding new monastic orders in contravention | 
of the Canon Law? Surely, the way in which the 
Brethren of the Common Life conducted themselves 
was irreproachable’***. There were six ways of possess- 
ing temporal goods, some of which were far from 
commendable’, but to live outside of monasteries and 
still to have no property of one’s own, was highly 
praiseworthy***. In the first place, it would be in com- 
plete accordance with Christ’s wish as found in the 
Gospel of St. Matthew, ch. XVIII [ch. XIX, verse 21]: 
“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast’’*®. 
Secondly, man’s natural mind or reason impels him to 
live a simple life, that is, the common life, though man 
has sinned against his natural mind or reason***, where- 
fore the common life appears more difficult now. Again, 
many saints and doctors recommend the cession of ‘one’s 
private property for the benefit of the whole society or 
family, such as Egidius, Thomas Aquinas, and Bede**’. 
Where love reigns supreme, no one will want to have 
possessions of his own, and friendship is promoted by 
the common life, as has so well been said by Seneca**®. 
Furthermore, in the primitive, the Apostolic Church, 
all goods had been in common, and was not the early 
church the best one’***? We are taught by nature to 
lead the common life, for man is indeed a social animal, 
as Aristotle justly remarked. Hence the Stoics used to 
say that man was born to assist other men, which saying 
is supported by Genesis II**°. This is what Plato also 
asserted in the myth of Timaeus**. Paul preached the 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 69 


same doctrine in the twelfth chapter of his Epistle to 
the Romans, and Ambrose in the first book of the “‘De 
Officiis”, ch. CX XVIII, while there are several chapters 
found in the Canon Law which exhort all clerics to 
lead the common life**’. Augustine also recommended 
the common life on several occasions*®*. 

But now it happens, says Zerbolt, that in our day we 
are told that the common life is only to be lived by 
monks, and that all the references in the ‘‘sacred writ- 
ings” which approve the common life apply solely to 
the monastic state. For this reason one very rarely 
meets with men or women living the common life except 
in monasteries, though it was not that way in the days 
of the primitive church and long thereafter. For the 
same reason it may perhaps seem justifiable to all those 
monks who have lost all traces of religious fervor, 
and are filled with iniquity, gradually to do away with 
the common life altogether. Similarly many evangelical 
precepts are no longer obeyed, although they are most 
beneficial to all those who still follow them’, 

Here Zerbolt exposes the secret of the great decline 
in morals among the clergy, secular as well as regular. 
At first it was customary for all to follow Christ and 
obey every one of his commandments in so far as 
humanly possible. As the first ardor cooled, only the 
spiritual leaders were expected to do what in preceding 
centuries had been performed by all. -And in Zerbolt’s 
time many members of the clergy had relinquished all 
hopes and desires of becoming imitators of Christ and 
his apostles. Zerbolt knew quite well where they failed. 
Even when the most experienced members of his house 
at Deventer built a monastery which was generally re- 
garded as a model of piety, Zerbolt remained in the 
“House of Florentius’, as Radewijns, his teacher, did. 


70 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


One could practise religion just as well in private homes, 
he thought, and for many years it was his highest 
ambition to prove this to the outside world. 

Zerbolt had by no means exhausted his evidence in 
favor of the Brethren of the Common Life. Augustine 
advises us, he continues, in cases of doubt to refer to 
the older laws, writings, or customs of the Church. We 
should not hesitate to search among the works of the 
Ancients. What do we find regarding the theory of the | 
common life? Not only was it practised by the apostolic 
church, but even long before the coming of Christ. The 
common life was begun in Paradise**’. And if man had 
not fallen, this mode of living would still be universal 
among men. After the state of innocence man was 
placed under the law of nature, or the natural laws. 
Even in this state the common life was continued among 
religious men, and it flourished where love and friend- 
ship were cultivated***. Many philosophers, although 
they lived without the guidance of the Scriptures, were 
taught by the “Law of nature” and the “natural light” 
that the common life would promote friendship and love. 
Consequently they also lived the common life**’. Of 
the Pythagoreans we read that all the disciples of 
Pythagoras laid all their money in their midst, and 
among them was great friendship. For Pythagoras had 
taught them to make one out of many. That was true 
friendship, he said*’*. On the question of the common 
life the philosophers of old almost completely agreed 
with the theologians, hence there was no need of giving 
other quotations from philosophical writings’. 

Again, the common life flourished under the régime 
of the Mosaic law, particularly among the wisest and 
most virtuous men. There were namely three sects 
among the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Ess- 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 71 


enes, and of these three the Essenes were the noblest, 
for according to Josephus they lived in many respects 
the apostolic life and had all goods in common. This 
mode of life was reinstated therefore by Christ, observed 
by the Apostles and their disciples, and continued after- 
wards. But in the state of glory, when God will be all 
in all, and the joys of us all the joys of each, and the 
joys of each the joys of all, then this common life is 
to be perfected and universally applied. For where all 
things shall be in common, there will be no discord, but 
perfect love and unity. And the more sincerely we 
practise this common life and this love for God and 
our neighbor, the more rapidly we shall approach this 
state of glory’*®. 

In the last part of-the third chapter Zerbolt shows that 
the dwelling together of pious men in private homes does 
not necessarily institute an officially recognized “colle- 
gium”, for these men hold no offices in the Church, 
and if some of them do, it is certainly not on account 
of their office that they were admitted as members of 
their society**. The fourth chapter of the “Treatise 
on the Common Life” deals with the subject of secret 
societies. Three kinds of such societies are prohibited, 
Zerbolt writes, namely the assemblies of conspirators, 
of heretics, and of the seditious. But the Brethren of 
the Common Life are a quite different sort; they are 
pious, loyal, orderly**. The fifth chapter is devoted to 
the question of preaching in private houses. This is for- 
bidden, Zerbolt admits, but the members of a group 
may address and exhort one another, correct each other’s 
faults, and even deliver speeches to the whole group in 
the house, as long as no one speaks to the common 
people, which may only be done by the prelates*®*. The 
same subject is continued in the next chapter, where 


72 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


it is explained that the Brotherhood of the Common 
Life is quite distinct from all secret societies’. 

The seventh chapter is perhaps the most interesting 
one of the whole treatise. It has been printed twice in 
the original since 1889, and once in the Dutch trans- 
lation*®. As early as the year 1400 it had been trans- 
lated by a monk in Brabant*®*, and not long after this 
date it spread across all of Germany, being copied in 
great numbers*®’. In the table of contents this chapter 
is entitled: “It is permitted to read and have Dutch — 
(Germanic) books; what Dutch (Germanic) books are 
dangérous for laymen and what are prohibited’***. We 
have seen that Groote shortly before his death translated 
parts of the Bible and a great many church hymns. If 
he had lived several years longer, he would undoubtedly 
have translated a great deal more into the Dutch verna- 
cular. Now Zerbolt regarded it his duty to continue in 
part the work left unfinished by Groote. Each disciple 
performed his fitting share. Cele took over Groote’s 
interest in educational reforms; John Brinckerinck be- 
came a leader among the Sisters of the Common Life; 
Radewijns was the appointed guide of the whole body 
of Groote’s disciples, — the great physician of the men- 
tally and spiritually diseased, the friend of the poor, the 
sorrowful, and the homeless; but Zerbolt inherited the 
master’s love for books, and for learning; it was he who 
had to defend the new brotherhood with weapons too 
heavy and cumbersome for Radewijns’ use; it was he 
who became the only distinguished scholar in the house 
at Deventer, and its most influential author till the days 
of Hegius, Murmellius, and Erasmus. 

To read the “sacred writings”, as long as they contain 
no heresy or errors, particularly, if they are easy to 
understand, and in so far as they do not disagree with 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 73 


the canonical writings in style or subject matter, is per- 
missible and praiseworthy, claims Zerbolt. This can be 
proved in the following manner. If laymen are not 
allowed to read such books, it will be necessary to state 
why, that is, because they are laymen and unlearned, 
and for such it is not fit to read or study religious 
writings; or, although it is not prohibited for laymen 
to read them, nevertheless they shall not be permitted 
to read them in their native tongue. But it would be 
wrong to make such an assertion. For in the first place, 
laymen are not forbidden to read such works on account 
of being laymen, as is plainly inferred from several 
decisions found in the Canon Law**. Augustine even 
reprehends laymen for being unwilling to read religious 
writings. Chrysostom does the same. Jerome exhorts 
even women to study the Scriptures, as is done also 
by Gregory*”’. There are many laymen to-day, Zerbolt 
remarks, who spend a great deal of their time-in reading 
wholly impractical and useless stories and fables about 
knights errant, the war of Troy, and similar subjects. 
Would it not be far better for them to study the Scrip- 
tures instead’? And what does the Bible have to say 
about this matter? The New Testament commands us 
more frequently to study God’s precepts than does the 
Old. Testament, but in the latter many commandments 
are given to read and study the Scriptures, as for 
example in Deuteronomy, ch. VI and ch. XI, and in 
inany other places. In Deuteronomy, ch. XI, we read: 
“Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart 
and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your 
hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 
And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them 
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest 
by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest 


74 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


up. And thou shalt write them upon the door post of 
thine house, and upon thy gates’. That such command- 
ments were not addressed to the clergy only is very plain 
indeed. From these and many other proofs which might 
be given, it clearly appears that laymen are not prohibited 
from reading religious writings, simply because they are . 
laymen’*”, 

Now we still have to prove that it is not forbidden 
to read religious writings in the vernacular. Much 
evidence can be brought forward to establish this point 
also. In the first place, we may say that the greater part 
of the Old Testament was written for the Hebrews in 
Hebrew, which was the vernacular for them. Similarly, 
the New Testament was drawn up in the Greek verna- 
cular with the exception of the Gospel of Matthew, and 
Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, which were directed to 
Hebrews, hence written in their vernacular. Some say 
that Paul wrote his. Epistle to the Romans in Latin. At 
any rate, the whole or nearly the whole of the Bible 
was written in another language than Latin. | 

In the second place, we find that many a missionary 
translated parts of the Bible into the language of the 
people he tried to convert. Dorotheus writes that Bar- 
tholomew, when he came to India, translated the Gospet 
of St. Mark into the language used there. This he 
surely would not have done, had he thought it wrong 
for any one to read the Bible in the vernacular. The 
sole reason why the Bible is now read in Latin, is on 
account of this language Being.so widely used*”. The 
Hebrews read the Old Testament in Hebrew, the Greeks 
had Greek Bibles, the Chaldeans had the Scriptures in 
their own language. In the days of old the Syrians and 
the Arabs read the Bible in the vernacular. Ulfilas 
translated it into Gothic. The Bible has been translated 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 75 


for the Egyptians, the Slavs, the Armenians, and if one 
were to search further he might find a translation of 
parts of the Bible in every language under the sun*™*! 
For when the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles 
on that great day of Pentecost, many devout men were 
present and each heard the Apostles speak in his native 
tongue, for a sign that the gospel of Christ was to be 
preached in every language on the globe. Yes, in all 
languages except the Dutch or Teutonic? Would not 
that be a curious, a ridiculous thing? Impossible. Why 
should not they, the Brethren of the Common Life, who 
counted many laymen among their members, be allowed 
to read the Bible in the vernacular? Every one endowed 
_ with an infinitesimal spark of intelligence would at once 
admit that they were permitted to study the Bible in 
Dutch. Not only permissible it was, but meritorious and 
quite praiseworthy’”. 

But it would not be wise to read all books indiscrimin- 
ately ; laymen are not allowed to read heretical works for 
example. They should study those writings which plainly 
and openly discuss simple doctrines, as was indicated by 
Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, the third 
chapter, and in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. Augustine gives us similar instructions, and 
Chrysostom also. There are certain parts of the Bible 
which are more or less obscure, as the Revelation by 
St. John. Such books ought to be explained and properly 
interpreted for laymen to comprehend their hidden 
meaning. What benefit could one derive from the study 
of books one could never hope to understand? Hugo 
of St. Victor and Augustine have taken great pains to 
explain this matter. One should also avoid those books 
which use profane and abusive language in dealing with 
the most sacred subjects. There are such Teutonic 


76 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


works in existence, like certain sermons by Eckhardt. 
And. finally, laymen should read no religious works in 
the vernacular that deviate from the doctrines promul- 
gated by the acknowledged leaders in the Church’. 

Chapter VIII of the “Treatise on the Common Life” 
is devoted to the subject of obedience. The Brethren 
of the Common Life had taken no vows, for they did 
not intend to form a monastic organization. Conse- 
quently they could not bestow so great authority upon 
their superior or rector as was the case with the regular 
clergy. Not a single member of their house was obliged 
or compelled to obey the instructions of the rector. They 
did not promise to obey any office-holder in such manner. 
No matter how humble and how ignorant one might be, 
no one, however virtuous, talented or noble, could 
threaten him with punishment, for no one expected him 
to render homage to any superior in that way. For 
they had decided to obey Christ only, and to imitate 
the Apostles. If one were to find the kingdom. of 
heaven, Christ had said, one should become like unto 
a little child. The greatest men in God’s kingdom were 
those who not only obeyed their superiors, but also their 
equals, and even their inferiors. In the apostolic church 
all members had been considered each other’s superiors 
and equals, — all as members of one body. 

These and similar questions Zerbolt discussed in chap- 
ter eight of his treatise. All men were expected to 
render obedience to their superiors, he began, laymen 
as well as the clergy. For this reason the Church has 
condemned that sect which claims that man may attain 
to such perfection in this life that he no longer has to 
obey any law or commandment issued either by temporal 
or ecclesiastical powers. But in houses like the one in 
which Zerbolt was living one found oneself transported 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 77 


into a wholly different atmosphere. Here all men were 
considered equal’. 

Yet no society can exist without law and order. It 
is as with a family, where the father is like a king in 
his kingdom. The children and the domestics all obey 
the master of the house, and he takes care of the whole 
family*’*. Yet there is a great difference also between 
the house of the brethren and a family. In a family 
we find inferiors obeying a superior. In the brethren- 
house one finds equals correcting and admonishing each 
other as equals, not as a father treats his children*”. 
Is such kind of obedience permissible? It is, according 
to Peter, Augustine, Bernard, and Thomas Aquinas*®. 
The fact is, there could not be harmony or peace in 
such a house without this sort of obedience***. It is 
permissible then for the Brethren of the Common Life 
to have a rector to take care of the house, and to obey 
each other’s wishes, in order to promote peace and 
harmony. 

Is it also permissible for them to confess their sins 
to each other? Some declare they should not do this, 
but these people are wrong, says Zerbolt in chapter nine. 
One may confess one’s sins to laymen. In case of 
necessity one may even confess one’s mortal sins to a 
laymen**’. And as for venial sins, one is permitted to 
confess them at any time. For in the sixth chapter of 
James we read: “Confess your faults one to another’”*’. 
And although the learned doctors and theologians are 
not agreed on this subject, nevertheless we are permitted 
to confess our sins to laymen. But it seems best to 
confess to priests whenever possible. To-day the custom 
of confessing sins to one another is scarcely ever 
practised. Perhaps because we have so many priests, , 
or because many doctors are opposed to the practice™. 


78 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


It certainly is permissible, Zerbolt continues, to con- 
fess daily shortcomings to each other. For such a 
humble confession almost in itself brings one forgive- 
ness of the sins committed***. In the second place, this 
kind of confession will teach us more clearly the nature | 
of sin, the difference between vice and virtue, and the 
various remedies for each vice***. It is easily understood 
that for this kind of confessions we do not so much 
need a person who has the keys of authority, as one with 
experience in spiritual affairs, who can teach us to fight 
temptations and the devil’s attacks**’. When somebody 
reproved Arsenius for confessing his sins to an un- 
learned farmer who knew a great deal about spiritual 
exercises, he answered: “I have learned Latin and 
Greek, but the alphabet of this farmer I have thus far 
failed to decipher”. Thirdly, if one is accustomed sin- 
cerely to reveal his shortcomings, he finally becomes 
ashamed of having to admit the repeated yielding to 
the same temptation, and firmly resolves to defeat the 
enemy who sent that temptation. Confession also frees - 
us more quickly from the snares of the tempter*®*. 

This non-sacramental confession, Zerbolt argues, was 
once very common among virtuous men and highly 
praised, but now it is not common and some consider 
it wrong’®*. Here we have the secret of the institution 
founded by Groote: a protest against the formalism of 
the Church in the fourteenth century. One by one the 
commandments of Christ had been disregarded as too 
difficult to follow. Even the clergy generally were dis- 
regarding them, and what was infinitely worse, the men 
who wanted to return to the customs of the apostolic 
church were attacked by the very leaders in Christen- 
dom. The Brethren of the Common Life were called 
heretics, — they were attacked for trying to obey, where 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 79 


their enemies refused to obey. They were not to live 
the common life, nor to have a rector, nor to read 
religious books in the vernacular. To confess their sins 
to each other was said to be prohibited, though James 
had plainly commanded all Christians to practise it 
frequently. 

What else was wrong about the new brotherhood? 
Groote had prepared a schedule for the men who had 
decided to live the common life, according to which they 
were to regulate their daily tasks**°. The brethren had 
chosen a rector soon after Groote’s death*’’, and now 
they had a procurator besides***, while some or all of 
the members practised a certain course of spiritual 
exercises. Although it is impossible to tell exactly what 
sort of a constitution they had in Zerbolt’s day, inasmuch 
as the original written constitution was drawn up after 
1413*°*, certain it is that they were following definite 
rules. That was wrong, their enemies said. Hence the 
tenth chapter of the treatise is intended by Zerbolt to 
defend this feature of the brotherhood’s organization*™*. 
‘The same subject is continued in the eleventh or last 
chapter. To perform manual labor at stated times, and 
to read books, to fast, pray, and meditate regularly is 
permitted, says Zerbolt, not only to monks but to all 
virtuous men**’, For even the simplest laborers eat, 
work, rest, and sleep at stated times*’®. Therefore the 
Brethren of the Common Life too are allowed to have 
their rules or regulations. And here the treatise ends. 

Zerbolt’s theological views are most clearly set forth 
in his ‘Spiritual Ascensions”, the work which exercised 
such a profound influence on Catholic Europe of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly on Ignace 
Loyola. Based on and partly copied after the “Treatise 
on Spiritual Exercises” by Radewijns, Zerbolt’s book 


80 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


on the spiritual ascensions repeats the views set forth 
by Radewijns, which views are supplemented by certain 
chapters found in the “Reformation of the Faculties 
of the Soul’, — also written by Zerbolt. They form 
a course of spiritual exercises, which were practised by 
thousands, worked over by Mauburn (or Mombaer), 
and finally incorporated, though changed to some extent, 
by Loyola in his “Spiritual Exercises’, as we shall have 
occasion to observe in another chapter**’. 

Man fell from his privileged state of innocence in | 
paradise. This was the first fall***; the second fall of 
man is due to his sins on earth*’®. “If one wishes to 
‘find the kingdom of heaven’, says Zerbolt, “one must 
steadily keep in view whence he originally came, — 
what he was before the fall, in order that he may know 
how to regain his lost estate, for it is useless to strive 
after perfection, if one knows not what such perfection 
implies. Man must in all his spiritual exercises remem- 
ber his final end: purity of heart and love’. To purify — 
the heart is to extinguish evil desire, which we may also 
call the reformation of the soul or the mind?*. For 
Oh man, thy mind, which is more exalted than all mortal © 
creatures, becomes defiled in subjecting itself through 
improper affection to temporal objects*”. Explore your 
sinful nature, strive to realize the extent of your fall, 
and carefully examine your evil deeds each day*®*. For 
there is also a third fall, which for example happened 
to the prodigal son, when he went among the swine*™. 
In this condition man continually commits mortal sins. 

Since we can distinguish three falls or descents, there 
must also be three ascents, each divided into several 
steps or stages. As man ascends the steps, he gradually 
reforms his intellect, his will, and his memory, for these 
are the three faculties of the soul?*. During the first 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 81 


ascent he leaves the ways of the godless, as the prodigal 
left the swine*®. He begins to confess his sins and to 
show repentance*’’. During the second ascent his re- 
pentance is sufficient to bring forgiveness, but that is 
not enough’’*. Three things are needed before he reaches 
the third ascent, namely: fear of the Lord, hope, and 
love. Zerbolt begins with fear, for often he had read 
this text: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom’. In the first place, this holy fear plainly 
exposes the evil fruits of sin”°®. One also should reflect 
often on the approach of death’”®, the last judgment*”, 
and the pains in hell’’’. The second step of the second 
ascent is hope, the hope of future joy”*. Then follows 
the third step, where the active life begins. Here one 
learns to love, after having purified the heart. And 
here one commences the real exercises. 

Zerbolt asks, How are we to purge ourselves from 
sin, and acquire perfect love? Only through Christ, 
who is our model and example. For Christ said that 
no one could come to the Father but through him. It 
should be our aim to become his companions, his follow- 
ers’**. Secondly, we should love and adore Christ both 
as God and man, and thirdly, through the example of 
Christ’s humanity, we could rise to great heights of 
spiritual perfection, while, in looking upon his divinity 
aS our mirror, we ourselves might obtain knowledge 
of and love for things divine**®. Just as Radewijns had 
devoted a considerable part of his “Omnes inquit artes” 
to the life of Christ”**, and as Thomas a Kempis, who 
was now collecting the material for the “Imitation of 
Christ”, was soon to follow Radewijns, so Zerbolt also 
reserved thirteen chapters for this same subject?’. 

The third ascent is directed against the evil conse- 
quences of the first fall or descent, commonly called 


82 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


original sin. Zerbolt holds that it is our duty to cleanse 
our hearts in so far as we are able, humanly speaking, 
from the tares introduced into our blood by Alddam’s sin 
with Eve**. The first thing to do is to extinguish vice, 
as Radewijns also had said***. Then follow about a 


dozen other chapters, some of which remind us forcibly | 


of certain passages in the “Treatise on the Common 
Life’**®, but they contain nothing new. 


Zerbolt wrote his two mystical works shortly before 


his death, which occurred in 1398. In November, 1398, 
the Brethren of the Common Life of Deventer had 
returned from Amersfoort”. Radewijns was ill, where- 
fore Zerbolt was sent to an old friend north of Deventer. 
On his return he caught an infectious disease and died 
on the 4th of December’. With him the house at 
Deventer lost its scholar, author, and defense. Rade- 
wijns, heart-broken as he was, passed away on the 25th 
of March, 1400, and the centre of the ‘““New Devotion” 
shifted northward to Windesheim and Zwolle. 


VI 


' The monastery of Windesheim had been founded in 
the year 1386 by Groote’s followers at Deventer, who 
wished to materialize his plans. They wanted a per- 
manent place of refuge for those among their number 
who preferred the monastic life, and a place that might 
afford a temporary sheltersto the brethren left behind 
at Deventer, in case of need***. “For this reason did 
they decide to build a monastery”, says Rudolph Dier, 
“because they, living~the simple, common life, were 
afraid of further persecutions by rivals, and thus, if 
some of their members would be actually living in a 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 83 


monastery, the others would be protected by them’’*. 
The brethren in Radewijns’ vicarage had felt rio need of 
such protection until they had introduced the common 
life. In 1386, however, we find them looking for a site 
for their new monastery. They found one near Hattem 
on the Veluwe, about three miles south-west of Zwolle. 
After having secured permission from the Duke of 
Gelderland to erect some buildings there, they went to 
their ecclesiastical lord, the Bishop of Utrecht. Rade- 
wijns and six other men were sent to tell the bishop 
about their plans. “Do not build that monastery in 
Gelderland’, the bishop told them, “but ,somewhere in 
my territory east of the Yssel’. Now it happened that 
one of ‘the men, a certain Berthold ten Hove, owned 
some property there, wherefore the brethren agreed to 
build on his land, which was situated at Windesheim in 
the Yssel valley, three miles south-east of Zwolle”’®. 
First one man was sent to make the necessary prepara- 
tions; later five others were added, and one was appoint- 
ed procurator”*. They began to work at once. The 
site was found to be a lonely tract of land with some 
few willows on it?’’, but no buildings of any kind to 
house the men”*. A small elevation was selected for 
the buildings. This spot, they were told, had never been 
flooded by the Yssel***. Soon gifts came pouring in: 
Lambert Stuerman, of whom Groote had caught the 
pest, as they thought, but who had recovered, gave 100 
French crowns; some one else gave 200, and a third one 
136. Henry of Wilsen, one of the six men sent to in- 
spect the grounds, sold all he had, and handed the money 
over to the brethren at Deventer. Many among his 
relatives and acquaintances contributed, so that the 
amount required for the erection of the buildings was 
soon raised. Encouraged by this the men at Windes- 


84 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


heim worked with redoubled energy. In October of the 
year 1387 the monastery proper, with its church, had 
been finished***. All was now ready for the dedication. 
The six brethren were to take the vows of chastity, 
poverty, and obedience. But, although they had been 
instructed by Groote and Radewijns in the essentials 
of the Christian religion, they knew practically nothing 
_about the monastic life and its ceremonies. They decided 


to spend a few days at the Augustinian monastery of © 


Eemsteyn near Dordrecht, where some of Groote’s best 
friends were now practising the rules of the Augustinian 
Canons Regular with the ardor of new devotion’. 
Here they were kindly accepted and initiated into the 
rituals of the Augustinian order, which the monks of 
Eemsteyn had learned from those of Groenendaal, Ruys- 
broeck’s monastery’. On the 17th of October the 
dedication took place. The brethren went through the 
customary ceremonies, and each of them read from a 
strip of parchment the vows of obedience, poverty, and 
chastity. Just those and no others. No vows of obe- 


dience to the bishop of Utrecht, no promises of allegiance ~ 


to any party or power, and no submission to any rules 
except those they were to formulate themselves. What 
was the cause of this independent attitude? Perhaps it 
was, as Acquoy suggests, the inborn love for personal 
liberty so characteristic of the Frisians and the Saxons**’. 

There stood the little monastery with its thatched 
roofs among the willows planted beside the still waters. 
Who would have thoughtsin 1387 that this humble 
convent would soon be sending its missionaries all over 
the Low Countries and thence into the farthest outpost 
of the German Empire; that it would bring about the 
only lasting monastic reform in fifteenth century Europe, 
and incorporate within its fold some of the most famous 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 85 


monasteries in the West? Though its men were first 
taught by the monks of Eemsteyn near Dordrecht, 
Groenendaal near Brussels, and St. Victor at Paris, not 
long thereafter it surpassed them all in moral force and 
religious zeal. 

This apparently marvelous success may not seem 
strange, however, to one who has noted how the founders 
of Windesheim spent their lives. Under the leader- 
ship of Henry of Hoxter (17 October 1386-17 October 
1387) and that of William Keynkanp (October 1387- 
November 1391) the works of love and faith were 
plentiful’**. Particularly during the priorate of John 
Vos of Heusden (1391-1424) Windesheim was the 
pride of Groote’s followers, and from 1400-1424 it 
was the centre of the “New Devotion”. So great was 
the love among the Brethren of the Common Life at 
Deventer and their friends at Windesheim in those 
early years that all their possessions were considered 
almost as one common fund, placed at the disposal of 
the one who needed them most?**: In 1392 Deventer 
and Windesheim founded the monastery of Mariendaal 
near Arnhem. John Ketel, the pious cook at Deventer, 
who possessed 1300 florins, gave the whole sum to the 
founders, and Radewijns also gave some money’”’. 

John Vos of Heusden was in fact the greatest prior 
Windesheim ever had. Born at Heusden in 1363, he 
had come to Deventer to receive instruction in the 
cathedral school of St. Lebwin?*’. Radewijns had in- 
troduced him to Groote one day. The first meeting had 
been decisive. Groote had looked at him with one of 

_those penetrative glances of his, which seemed to pierce 
one’s very soul, and said: “This is the man I have 
sought; with him I will do something worth while on 
earth’’***, Till 1388 he had remained with the other 


86 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


brothers in Radewijns’ vicarage. But the monastery 
called him***, and in 1391 he was elected prior**’. 

The first thirty years were a time of great moral 
strength and rapid growth. Of the forty brethren in- 
vested before 1424, one half became rectors or priors 
of monasteries built or reformed under their super- 
vision***. For there were other great reformers in those 
early days besides John Vos of Heusden. There was 
John a Kempis, a disciple of Groote and later of Rade- 
wijns***. At Deventer and Windesheim he was a model 
of piety, and later he became rector and prior of several 
monasteries in succession***, Then there was Arnold of 
Calcar, sub-prior at Windesheim for 35 years***, and 
Henry Wilde, one of the six founders, who was sent 
to St. Victor at Paris to study the rules of the Augus- 
tinian order***; Henry Wilsem, once a prominent magis- 
trate at Kampen, and a convert of Groote’**, Berthold 
ten Hove, also converted by Groote**’, John Scuutken, 
another disciple of Groote***, and Albert Wijnberghen**’. 

It should be noted, however, that whatever Windes- 
heim possessed before the year 1400 was a gift from. 
the Brethren of the Common Life and their friends at 
Deventer. And similarly, when a monastery was built 
for the Augustinian Canonesses Regular, it was founded 
by the Sisters of the Common Life of Deventer. 

In 1383 the sisters had secured a rector and confessor 
in the person of John van den Gronde?®®. When Groote 
was about to die, he had promised to send “‘little flowers” 
from heaven’. But for several years his promise re- 
mained unfulfilled. The rector was getting old, and 
could devote but a small part of his time to their care, 
as he often went out preaching, or to hear confessions 
of the sisters at Zwolle, or the brethren at Mount St. 
Agnes, three miles north-east of Zwolle?”. Left without 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 87 


proper guidance, the Sisters of the Common Life at 
Deventer gradually neglected Groote’s instructions; dis- 
cipline relaxed, and the blessings of manual labor were 
ignored. When Van den Gronde died***, a reform was 
at once instituted by his capable successor, named John 
Brinckerinck. This brother was one of the most ardent 
followers Groote ever had, for he had attended the 
master on nearly all his trips. He became as close a 
friend of Groote as John Cele had been***. Not being 
able to find a single monastery in or near the Yssel 
valley where Christ was imitated, he had joined the 
Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer®®. In 1392 
he left their house for the “House of Master Gerard”, 
— Groote’s ancestral home, — this being the year in 
which -Van den Gronde passed away. 

Brinckerinck has rightly been called the second founder 
of the “House of Master Gerard””**, The moment he 
entered the building, the sisters felt that their life of 
ease was ended. They were told to lead the common life 
again, to work with their own hands and to discontinue 
begging for alms. “You must either work or leave the 
house”, was his command. But they stayed, for he at 
once won both their love and respect”*’. It was said that 
rays of holiness radiated from him?**. Soon his fame 
spread beyond the walls of Deventer. From Zeeland, 
Friesland, Miinster, and Cologne all sorts of persons 
came to the “House of Master Gerard” for counsel and 
religious instruction’*®. And the sisters, inspired by his 
saintliness, were full of religious fervor?®. Soon the 
old home of Groote was found altogether too small. 
Four other houses were founded at Deventer during 
Brinckerinck’s life-time’. Says one early biographer: 
“So great a fire of the Holy Ghost was kindled among 
those saintly sisters in the House of Master Gerard that 


88 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the whole country around here grew warm with it, and 
all this as the result of the doctrine and instruction of 
their father, John Brinckerinck’”*. ; 

Meanwhile some of the clergy were not pleased. Others 
were filled with holy anger, because the poor women — 
read books in the vernacular, which was considered 
_ reprehensible by certain members of the clergy at that 
* time. The sisters should immediately stop this evil 
practice, they said, and when they saw that their orders 
were disregarded, they attacked the sisters publicly. At 
last Brinckerinck found it necessary to defend them in 
church, where he held a lengthy discourse on the subject 
of reading books in the vernacular. The arguments used 
on this occasion he had gleaned from a book he had 
read in the library of the brethren-house*”*, which prob- 
ably had been composed by Zerbolt. 

There were other reasons why the Sisters of the 
Common Life were attacked in those early days, — the 
same reasons which caused the Brethren of the Common 
Life to seek protection in a monastery. Many a time 
Brinckerinck had to ascend the pulpit in the church of 
St. Mary at Deventer to defend the sisters. It should 
not surprise us to learn that they too wanted to found 
a convent, for the times were so different from what 
they are to-day. On the seventeenth of June, 1400, 
Brinckerink called the sisters together to draw up the 
necessary plans. They possessed a piece of land near 
the Yssel, three miles north of Deventer’**. Here they 
decided to build their home. But it was a lonely tract 
of land they had selected, — marshy and unattractive. 
Ditches had to be dug, stumps rooted up, holes filled 
with sand; in most places the surface of the soil had to 
be raised six feet. Undaunted by hardship, fatigue, and 
discomfiture, the women did the work, assisted by the 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE = 89 


brethren of the “House of Florentius’” and later by 
hired laborers. Before that year was over, the first 
buildings, made of wood, were finished*®’. In 1401 the 
sisters bought some more land, in 1406 still more; they 
built a barn also, and soon they had become prosperous 
farmers, possessing a fine herd of sheep, cows, pigs, 
and who knows what else? The monotonous brown of 
the murky soil had been replaced by soft green grass*”*. 
And soon the wooden cloister buildings were exchanged 
for a fine brick convent, — the convent of Diepenveen**’. 


Vil 


After Zerbolt’s death the centre of the “New Devo- 
tion” had traveled northward from Deventer to Windes- 
heim and Diepenveen. It was to shift still farther to 
the north, for in the city of Zwolle a flourishing brethren- 
house had attracted many devout from Flanders, Brabant, 
Friesland, Westphalia, and other districts. Soon it 
opened its doors to a Wessel Gansfort, an Alexander 
Hegius, and a Rudolph von Langen, and before long it 
began to send out missionaries to several other cities, 
such as Groningen, ’s-Hertogenbosch, and Doesburg, 
where daughter-houses were founded. The reform of 
the school at Zwolle was the beginning of a mighty 
revival of learning. And although this intellectual revival 
found its most perfect expression in the labors of Hegius 
at Deventer, Murmellius at Minster, and Dringenberg 
at Schlettstadt, Zwolle was the place which provided the 
source material, and gave the movement its impetus. 

Among Groote’s first and most influential disciples 
was Henry Foppens of Gouda. Anxious to imitate his 
master as friend of poor school boys, he bought a house 
at Zwolle, where he intended to lodge some of them’. © 


90 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Also as preacher and leader of the Sisters of the Common 
Life at Zwolle he became a worthy follower of Groote*”. 
Then there was Reynold of Drenen, pastor at Zwolle*”, 
and blind John Ummen, a very pious man, who together 
with two other laymen, named Jacob Wittecoep and 
Wychmannus Ruerinck, bought a lot next to Foppen’s 
house. On this lot a house was built, where the three 
laymen in question lived the common life, acting upon 
Groote’s advice*”. We might therefore call them the 
first Brethren of the Common Life, for they had kept 
no private property of their own’”. On the 5th of July, 
1384, the house was sold to Groote, lest the heirs might 
claim it some day*’*. “These three men”, says Jacob 
Voecht of Utrecht, ‘‘were therefore the first Brethren 
of the Common Life at Zwolle, to which number many 
others were added later, among whom blind John 
Ummen was foremost; he became their rector and 
procurator. Together they moved to Mount St. Agnes, 
where Groote showed them the site for their new 
house’’?”*, ji 

The first brethren-house at Zwolle was not a success, 
for the men who had founded it moved to a lonely hill, 
three miles away from the city, where but few people 
were found to give them employment, and few boys- 
to be cared for. A better fate was reserved for the 
second institution. On April 4, 1393, Frederick van 
Wevelinkhoven, Bishop of Utrecht, died. His successor, 
named Frederick van Blankenheim, was a friend of 
Groote’s disciples. The brethren at Zwolle, as soon as 
they were made aware of the new bishop’s friendly 
attitude, decided once more to found a house, hoping 
that this time they would not be compelled to seek pro- 
tection and rest in a solitary place?”. There was a cer- 
tain Meynoldus of Windesheim, a disciple of Groote, 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 1 


who had sold his property and had come to Zwolle, 
where in a humble dwelling he lived with a few poor 
school boys’’®. Encouraged by the success of the 
Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, he wanted 
to found a house where priests and clerics might live 
the common life. A suitable site was secured, and a 
fine building erected, called “House of St. Gregory’”’. 
This happened in the year 1396?%, 

Who was to be elected rector of the second institution 
at Zwolle? Meynoldus of Windesheim, the real founder, 
felt himself unfit for so exalted a task. It was not for 
him, he said, to become the spiritual guide of the men 
and boys living with him in his house. One day he 
came to Florentius Radewijns, rector at Deventer. “Can 
you lend me one of your clerics’? he asked of Rade- 
wijns. ‘Yes’, was the answer, “take this youth with 
you; his name is Gerard Scadde of Calcar’. At the 
expiration of one year Meynoldus returned to Deventer 
with Gerard. ‘The young man should at once be ordain- 
ed priest’”’, he said to Radewijns, “in order that he may 
become our rector”. Radewijns gladly assented’’*. In 
1396, then, the Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle 
obtained both a new house and a capable rector. They 
were instructed in the ways and means practised at 
Deventer ; the rules of Deventer, as yet unwritten, became 
theirs also””®. And with these rules they acquired reli- 
gious fervor in great measure, surpassing their friends 
at Deventer for a time, as will be shown in the following 
chapter. . 

Thus far we have but casually mentioned the name 
of Zwolle’s great teacher, John Cele. A native of Zwolle, 
he received a master’s degree at some university, — 
Prague perhaps. Through Groote’s friendship he seems 
to have obtained his position as rector of the city school 


92 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


at Zwolle, in or shortly after the year 1374°°. The fact 
that Groote selected him as his trusted companion on 
his visit to Ruysbroeck is significant. Groote often 
corresponded with him in later years’, and also often 
came to visit him®*’. In almost every respect Cele tried 
to imitate his beloved friend. Not only did he, as Groote 
had done, refuse to become a priest, declaring that a 
priest’s responsibilities were greater than those of the 
angels***, but he also stayed a short time (1381-1382) 
at Monnikhuizen***, the Carthusian monastery near 
Arnhem, where Groote also had spent two years. And, 
as had been the case with Groote, he found but little 
satisfaction there**®. Duty, he thought, had called him 
back to Zwolle: “his light should no longer be hid 
beneath a bushel’. 

Cele brought about the reform of the city school at 
Zwolle, and succeeded in attracting as many as 1200 
boys at a time from districts far removed from the 
Yssel valley. He became the founder and originator 
of what we now call the secondary schools, and it was 
his school that served as model for those of Dringen- 
berg, Hegius, Murmellius, Melanchton, Sturm, Calvin, 
the Jesuits, and all their followers. There were several 
causes which contributed to his success. In the first place, 
after having been taught by Groote to make a careful 
distinction between the form and the inner essence of 
things, he pruned away from his curriculum all dead 
formalism, at least as far as he was able. Of what use 
was the study of Canon Law, medicine, and astronomy to 
the average school boy, he used to ask, consciously in 
imitation of Groote’s standpoint”**. And as for the study 
of religion and the harmonious development of one’s 
mental and spiritual self, the Gospels, the Epistles of 
the New Testament, and other biblical works, together 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE ~ 93 


with the Fathers, were a more fruitful source of in- 
struction than the subtle and wholly impractical scholastic 
disputes engaged in by the learned doctors of Paris and- 
Cologne. Scholasticism was as good as any other system 
of philosophy, but there were different kinds of scholas- 
ticism: the living and the dead, the practical and the 
formal, as there were different kinds of religion or faith, 
such as the theoretical and the personal, such as the 
religion of Christ versus that of the Pharisees. 

John Cele did this thing, which was new. Three times 
a day (on holidays at least) he read and explained to 
his pupils selections from the Bible: from the Epistles 
in the morning, the Gospels in the afternoon, and from 
some other book in the evening’*’. He exhorted his 
pupils to write down those parts of his addresses which 
seemed most useful to them. The life of Christ was 
continually referred to as the only reliable pattern we 
could find on earth. To imitate him was Cele’s chief 
aim; it should be theirs also, he said. ‘Cele himself’, 
says Busch, “as a true imitator of Christ, never taught 
us anything which he had not previously practised, in 
order that he might be our example”’**. The pupils 
were taught to pray both in Latin and in Dutch; Busch 
gives us both versions of a prayer taught by Cele”*’. He 
never undertook anything without commending it first 
to God in prayer”®*®, for at all times he felt himself in 
the presence of God***. The one chief cause of his fame, 
says Schoengen, the archivist at Zwolle, was his maxim: 
“The kingdom of heaven consisteth not in knowledge 
and speech, but in work and virtue’’**?. Cele was not at 
all opposed to book-learning. He asserted that God’s 
will or testament was expressed in “sacred writings”, 
and that the Church would long have perished had it 
not been for the reading of good books***. Here he was 


04 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


trying to break away from the official stand-point of 
the Church, according to which a virtuous man had no 
need of reading the Bible any longer. Cele and Zerbolt 
proved themselves in this respect at least closer to 
Groote’s principles than Radewijns, who stressed the 
importance of intuition or inspiration more than the- 
scholarly Groote had done. Zerbolt, we remember, had 
followed Groote’s view in realizing the needs of the 
masses. The farmers and the burghers should read the 
Bible for themselves, he had argued, and since most of 
them could not read Latin, they ought to be given an 
opportunity of reading the Bible in their own tongue. 
Cele, in following these same views, invited all the in- 
habitants of Zwolle to attend his discourses, thus giving 
them a chance to gain a better understanding of the 
passages he advised them to study’. 

But there were a great many other books to be studied 
besides the Bible and the Fathers, in Cele’s opinion. 
Not a single subject was scrapped by him from the 
curriculum then in vogue. It was wise to examine every- 
thing, he thought, but one should learn to select the best, 
the useful, the practical. There was no harm in the 
study of geometry, astronomy, logic, and medicine, as 
long as one used those subjects as a means of reaching 
a certain end. If one was to become a priest some day, 
he would not need to know so very much about geometry, 
for example, nor would the future merchant or farmer 
have much occasion to study medicine, or astronomy. 
The Bible should be studied by everybody, for all men 
were created in God’s image; they all should strive to 
regain a part of their lost heritage. Virtue and love 
were essentials, character a necessity, if one wished to 
build up a society where peace and order would reign. 
One should also develop one’s intellect, however. The 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 95 


priest ought to know a great deal about literature and 
philosophy. The teacher, so long as he avoided as much 
as possible the merely theoretical, or formal side of 
things, would be justified in retaining all subjects taught 
in the schools thus far*®°. Cele, therefore, retained the 
exercises in scholasticism, grammar, logic, ethics, and 
philosophy’’*. “But although he took great pains in 
teaching these subjects with effect”, says Busch, “never- 
theless he did not thereby diminish his interest, — nay, 
he even increased his zeal in instructing his pupils in 
the sacred writings, good manners, a saintly and Chris- 
tian life, and the fear and love of God. For in the 
morning he would explain an Epistle, and in the evening 
some other part of the Scriptures, addressing the whole 
school’’”*?, 

Cele was a practical teacher. He saw that no two boys — 
were exactly alike, nor were they equally well supplied 
with funds. With the Brethren of the Common Life 
at Zwolle he made arrangements to house them in a 
suitable manner’**. Those who could afford it were 
expected to pay the brothers for their room and board, 
while Cele asked a certain sum as tuition fee. The poorer 
class of boys, of whom there were a great number, in- 
stead of being compelled to beg for alms, were kindly 
taken care of by the brethren, and Cele even gave them 
money for the books, ink, and paper they needed in, 
school***. In order to take care of each pupil’s individual 
needs, he divided his school into eight classes. This 
arrangement may seem quite simple and natural to us 
to-day. We should remember, however, that this phase 
of Cele’s reform was an innovation, a pedagogical dis- 
covery, we might say*®®. And this discovery, or inven- 
tion, led to other discoveries. The “quadrivium” was 
included in the curriculum, and last but not least, in 


96 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the two highest classes special studies were taught by 
specialists***. As the inevitable result of Cele’s reforms, 
his pupils generally made more rapid progress at the 
universities than most other students*”. 

Another factor which may partly explain Cele’s fame 
was his way of keeping order in the school-room. The _ 
teachers of that time resorted to various forms of 
punishment, which in spite of, or rather as a result of, 
their harshness failed to bring about better discipline. 
Cele rightly reasoned that a teacher’s personality was 
the great factor in the matter of order and discipline. 
He took a personal interest in every one of his pupils; 
as far as he was able, naturally. As to punishment, every 
form was too severe, if one had not first exhausted all 
the ways of correction taught him by sympathy and 
fove?: 

If he was right in asserting that the Church would 
have perished centuries ago without the use of books, © 
then the clergy in particular, but all laymen also, should. 
read much. Groote had held the same, and so had 
Zerbolt. And since there never could be too many good — 
books in the world, Cele taught his students the elements 
of rhetoric. One feature of his method was the 
“rapiarium’”, or collection of excerpts, which every pupil 
of his had to make. From the Gospels and other books 
of the New Testament he selected the plainest and most 
helpful sayings. These he dictated in a loud voice to. 
the whole school. ‘‘For he wanted his pupils to have 
the leading events and the most striking passages found 
in the Epistles and the Gospels collected in one copy- 
book, a theological excerpt-book, in which the most 
useful thoughts found in the sacred writings were 
gathered in brief extracts. This would enable them more 
easily to commit such passages to memory’, 


THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 97 


The influence exerted by him on the Europe of the 
fifteenth century is incalculable. Students, attracted by 
his fame, flocked to Zwolle from the bishoprics or 
principalities of Cologne, Trier, Louvain, Utrecht, Bra- 
bant, Flanders, Westphalia, Holland, Saxony, Cleves, 
Gelderland, and Frisia. Among the thousands of boys 
who between the years 1374 and 1417 were educated 
at Zwolle, a considerable number entered monasteries, 
where they helped to introduce better discipline, and 
more love for sound learning. ‘‘Paris, Cologne, Erfurt, 
and the Roman Curia testify how many learned men 
Cele’s school sent out’, is Busch’s complacent remark. 
The whole population of Zwolle was changed for the 
better as a result of Cele’s educational work. Among the 
prominent magistrates were found several of his pupils, 
from which we may infer that many a burgher of 
Zwolle, if not converted by Groote himself, became 
through Cele’s influence a defender of the principles 
advocated by the ‘“Devotio Moderna’, or Christian 
Renaissance. “It is now more than forty years ago’, 
Busch wrote. in 1459, “that he migrated hence, and still 
his name is upon the lips of those who were fortunate 
enough to be instructed by him’’**’. 

Although he was very generous in helping his poorer 
pupils, Cele made a great deal of money with his school. 
With this money he constructed a fine library in the 
church of St. Michael at Zwolle. There he placed a 
large collection of codices on theology, philosophy, and 
literature, to which all devout citizens were freely ad- 
mitted. Furthermore, many of Cele’s followers imitated 
his noble example by collecting books and lending them 
to others**®. By this also the city of Zwolle became a 
centre of popular learning. The clergy in particular 
were woefully lacking in sound learning. And if the 


98 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Church’ was to be regenerated, if a lasting religious 
revival, so sadly needed, was to take place, the clergy 
would have to be instructed first of all, the laymen 
should be taught to exert themselves, and school teachers 
must break with the empty formalism and the dying 
scholasticism which were injuring both the Church and 
society. This had been Groote’s message to the men 
and women of his day. Radewijns, Zerbolt, Vos of 
Heusden, Brinckerinck, and Cele each took over a part 
of Groote’s work, repeating his message in their own 
way. Thus began that mighty religious and intellectual 
revival, the “New Devotion’, or Christian Renaissance. 
Soon it succeeded in permeating the lives of the men and 
women living in the Yssel valley, then it spread in ever- 
widening circles across the continent. This was made 
possible by the strong organization built by the Brethren 
of the Common Life, which will be treated in the follow- 
ing chapter. 


CHAPTER III 
THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 
I 


From the year in which the “House of Florentius’* 
was built till the death of Radewijns in 1400 the brothers 
at Deventer led a very quiet and uneventful life. Rade- 
wijns was succeeded as rector by Amilius van Buren, an 
intimate friend of Thomas a Kempis, as will appear in 
a later chapter’. It was his constant aim to preserve 
mutual love and harmony among the men. Often he 
would say to them: “There is one thing which we must 
all adhere to and observe: our status as Brethren of the 
Common Life; for although the monastic state is prefer- 
able in the opinion of the Church, nevertheless he who 
lives a saintly life outside of a monastery will receive 
the reward of saintliness’’®. 

Amilius carefully guarded the rules of the house, and 
during his rectorate large numbers of school boys flocked 
to Deventer, many of whom acquired the habit of visit- 
ing the brethren-house, where they were regularly in- 
structed in the essentials of the Christian faith‘. 

It naturally followed that the brethren received 
most of their recruits from these boys’. In 1400 the 
community counted so many members that forty of 
them were sent to found other houses®. One young man 
went to Munster, where in the same year he induced a 
small number of followers to lead with him the common 
life’; a few others moved to Delft, also to found a 
house®. The rectorate of Amilius was therefore com- 


99 


100 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


pared with the reign of Solomon, while Radewijns’ 
rule was thought to correspond to that of David’. 

But Amilius van Buren did not reign so long as 
Solomon. During the first week in June, 1404, he felt 
the end of his life approaching. Calling all the members 


of the community together, he addressed them in a. 


lengthy speech. “John of Haarlem shall be my succes- 
sor’, he concluded; ‘obey him, and let no one say to 


himself that John is still so young, or that you have read 


much more and know a great deal more than he does. 
It is our duty to love our fellow-men, and obey them all 
in order that we may properly humiliate ourselves”. On 
June 10 Van Buren, the second rector of the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Deventer, passed away”. 

John of Haarlem ruled the brethren for six years. In 
1410 he was succeeded by Godfried Toorn, who was 
rector for forty years. Although he had to sustain a 
great deal of hatred and opposition from the enemies 
of the new brotherhood, his temper always remained 
serene. The sources also say that he knew how to search 


the inner recesses of the heart and to delve into the rich 


mines of theology and jurisprudence. Always looking 
beneath the surface of form and outward appearances, 
he was not satisfied with mere style. The brethren were 
encouraged by him to read as many books as possible, 
and to select those first which contained the most prac- 
tical religious and moral teachings. ‘Father John Vos 
of Heusden’’, he used to remark, ‘‘was wont to restrain 
his men from reading Thomas Aquinas and other mo- 
dern scholastics of his type on obedience and kindred 
subjects, hoping that they might thus retain their sim- 
plicity’™. 
extol: friendship and chastity. “Brethren”, he once ex- 
claimed, “we have left all our relatives and acquaintan- 


There were two virtues he never ceased to 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE IOI 


ces, our native country and other ties behind; we have 
come here to dwell together in this house that we might 
serve the Lord through the common life. If we, there- 
fore, are querulous, impatient, or in any way unkind to 
each other, we shall become the most_miserable among 
men. You will indeed kill me, if discord should arise 
among you’”*. 

The man who uttered these words was by no means 
devoid of talent. He had been a teacher at Deventer’, 
and it was during his rectorate that the Brethren of the 
Common Life drew up their first written constitution. 
Before 1413 they had failed to secure official recog- 
nition from the papal see. True, the monks of Windes- 
heim had defended them in 1395, the alumni of the 
University of Cologne had approved their mode of life, 
and Frederick van Blankenheim, bishop of Utrecht, had 
proved to be their faithful supporter; but the brethren 
wanted still more. In 1413 Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly came 
to the Yssel valley as papal legate for the Germanic 
peoples. He gave the brethren and sisters at Deventer 
several privileges, amongst them a document in which 
he officially confirmed the approbations signed by the 
Cologne jurists in 1398. Whether the cardinal personally 
requested or suggested that the brethren draw up a writ- 
ten constitution, we do not know. At any rate, it appears 
from the preamble to their first written constitution that 
the cardinal’s official support had encouraged them to 
write down these rules which had been in vogue among 
them, lest their successors should forget their own con- 
stitution’*. 

In September, 1450, Godfried Toorn’s health began to 
fail. His successor was elected by the brethren before 
he died. Six weeks later his death occurred, namely, 
on the 3rd of November*®. The new rector was called 


102 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Egbert ter Beek (1450-1483). During the first year of 
his rectorate Cusa, the famous cardinal, mathematician, 
and reformer, came to Deventer. He must have enjoyed 
himself there, as in this very same city, supported by 
these very same brethren, he is said to have received 
part of his early education’®. Quite naturally he offered 
them a great many privileges in the form-of prebends, 
and similar things. But the rector flatly refused to 
accept them, being unwilling to depart from the ways 
of simplicity and humility taught by the first members 
of his brotherhood*’. 

Egbert ter Beek distinguished himself for his zeal 
in upholding the status of the Brethren of the Common 
Life. Many a day he spent in visiting the daughter- 
institutions in Flanders, Brabant, Holland, and West- 
phalia; anxiously watching, lest the encroaching armies 
of monasticism overwhelm the brotherhood. One day 
he heard that the rector of the local institution at Does- 
burg on the Yssel had invited the prior of Windesheim 
to change his house into a monastery of the Augustinian 
Canons Regular. He immediately hurried to the -scene 
of operations. Yes, the prior was already there, having 
begun to invest the brethren. “What on earth are you 
doing here”? he exclaimed, addressing the brethren. 
“And what business brings you here”? was his remark 
to the prior of Windesheim. ‘Well’, answered the prior 
in question, “have I done any wrong in advancing the 
brethren to the monastic state, which, as you must admit, 
is superior to yours”? “I make no objection”, was Eg- 
bert’s reply, “if you merely seek to induce laymen or 
secular clergy to enter monasteries, but you ought not to 
usurp our houses. This house has always been ours, 
and it shall remain ours. It was given to our brethren, 
in order that they might live the common life, and if 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 103 


any of them should wish to become monks, they would 
be free to leave the house’. Whereupon the bewildered 
prior, according to our chronicle, quickly left the place’. 

It was during Ter Beek’s rectorate that John Brug- 
man, perhaps the most popular preacher the Low 
Countries ever produced, was changed from a Saul into 
a Paul. Even to-day the people throughout the Nether- 
lands, who as a rule have not the slightest idea who 
Brugman was, or where he lived, still make him a pro- 
verb, often remarking after having listened to an un- 
usually eloquent preacher: “He preaches like a Brug- 
man’’®, Like many a monk of his day, he had for a 
time been very bitter against the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life, who, as conscience but too plainly told him, 
were living more saintly and Christ-like lives without 
the protection of the monastic vows than most so-called 
religious people. After his “reformation” he suddenly 
changed his attitude, and thenceforth praised the brethren 
very highly in his sermons, letters, and treatises”’. 

On the sixteenth day of April, 1483, Egbert ter Beek 
followed the other four rectors to the grave”. A few 
days later his body was solemnly carried to the church- 
yard by the mourning brethren. Future leaders of the 
German Renaissance were among those who attended 
the funeral, for in that year Alexander Hegius was called 
to Deventer as rector of the school of St. Lebwin’s. and 
Erasmus was one of the boys who had been given relig- 
ious instruction by the brethren for several years past. 
From Zwolle the great revival of learning inaugurated 
by Groote and Cele had come traveling southward again, 
selecting Deventer as its centre till the death of Hegius. 
After 1483, the rectors of the brethren-house fade away 
into comparative oblivion’. 

As for the different buildings used by the brothers at 


104 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Deventer, a few remarks will suffice. Radewijns’ vicar- 
age was later referred to as the “Antiqua Domus’’, or the 
“Ancient House’”’, in distinction from the “Nova Do- 
mus’, or the “New House”, which was founded about 
the year 1398 for the school boys of the cathedral 
school’*. The house built in 1391 for the use of the 
members themselves, was called ““Domus Domini Flor- 
entii’’, or ““Heer Florenshuis’’, or “House of Master Flor- 
entius’. Several plots of ground were added to their 
property from time to time, and additional buildings 
were erected. for various purposes”*. The chief building 
occupied by the brethren at Deventer during the days 
of Erasmus was erected in 1441*°. And finally, those 
boys who could find no room in the “Nova Domus”, or 
“Domus pauperum’”’ (“New House’’, or “House for Poor 
Boys’’) were sent to two other houses: the “Hierony- 
mushuis” (“House of Jerome”) and the “Jufferenhuis”’, 
or “Juffer Wibbenhuis” (“House of Lady Wibben’’)”®. 


II 


In 1410 the brothers at Zwolle elected Theodore Her- 
xen as their second rector — the man who for a period 
of thirty-three years was to become the acknowledged 
leader of the “New Devotion”. Born in 1381, he, had 
received his early education at Deventer. He was one 
of those devout school boys who were so kindly treated 
by the brethren of the House of Florentius. As a 
faithful follower of Gerard Groote, he wanted to train 
his inner self somewhere in a Carthusian monastery. 
One day he came to John Vos, prior at Windesheim, 
and asked him for advice. The prior saw at once how 
easily this pious youth could be persuaded to enter his 
monastery. Furthermore, he was rich in earthly possess- 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 105 


ions, which Windesheim would be able to use to 
advantage. True, the young man had thus-far hesitated 
to become a monk, inasmuch as his desire to win other 
souls for Christ had been urging him to remain in the 
world among people. The monastic state, however, was 
at that time considered by most religious folk as vastly 
superior to that of a preacher who had not taken the 
three vows. Now it happened that in those days the 
doctrine of self-denial still remained indelibly engraved 
in the hearts of Groote’s disciples. Accordingly, the prior 
of Windesheim told the young man: “Do not enter this 
or any other monastery, but go to Gerard Scadde of 
Calcar, rector of the brethren at Zwolle, and ask him for 
admission into their house’’*’. 

On the 23rd of December, 1409, Gerard Scadde of 
Calcar died. Although Theodore Herxen was only 
twenty-nine, the brethren, struck by his great religious 
fervor, and aware of the superiority of his talents as 
educator, preacher, and scholar, elected him rector in 
Gerard’s place*®. Herxen was at once a zealous preacher, 
a skillful teacher, and a versatile writer. How one could 
most successfully win children and youths for Christ’s 
kingdom he set forth in three of his works, called: “A 
Book showing how to draw the Little Ones to Christ’, 
“A Treatise concerning the Drawing of Youths to 
Christ”, and “A Book concerning the Praiseworthy Ef- 
forts of the Brethren in drawing the Little Ones to 
Christ””*, The Brethren of the Common Life were 
conscientiously imitating Groote in trying to secure 
recruits from the boys and girls (though chiefly boys) 
for God’s army on earth. Theodore himself undoub- 
tedly spent many an hour giving these boys religious 
instruction. Later he wrote down the results of his 
experiences, in the three above-named treatises. 


106 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


As preacher and author he won great fame, for he 
preached to the people in their own language. Two big 
books were composed by him for laymen, which the 
brethren used to read from to the people on holidays. 
Among the many other works he wrote was a book 
called ““Devout Exercises”, which was read a great deal 
in his time. From far and near people came to him for 
advice and instruction®®, and the brethren themselves 
stood in such awe of him that a mere look of his would 
send them qualing with fear to their respective rooms. 
All devout men and women of Zwolle and its environ- 
ment revered this pious leader of the ‘““New Devotion”. It 
was whispered among them that he held daily converse 
with angels”. 

His influence must have been great upon some few at 
least among the many boys who came to him, as their 
custom was, to confess their sins. The sources tell of a 
very wayward son of a magistrate at Woudrichem, how 
his father had sent him to a monastery, whence he had 
returned home in a short time. Shortly after that he had 
been sent to Zwolle to attend school. Here he comported 
himself in a most disgraceful manner. The gravest mis- 
demeanors were but trifles to him. One day he came to 
Herxen to tell what he had done and ask for absolution. 
“My dear boy”, the rector replied, “no human being can 
absolve you from your sins, not on account of their great 
number, but of your state of mind. Not until you have 
utterly annihilated that evil force within you which pre- 
vents you from doing penance, not until you have firmly 
resolved to commit no one of these offenses any longer, 
can I absolve you from the guilt which now weighs down 
upon your soul. Go, and I will pray for you; try to sin 
no more, and I will struggle with you; and then return 
unto me once more. Then we shall rejoice together and 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 107 


praise the Lord for his grace, for I must wait till God 
himself forgives you, ere I can absolve you from sin”. 
The young reprobate went away, vaguely wondering 
why he, the well-favored son of a prominent magistrate, 
should be treated thus. But the rector of the brethren 
did not forget him, for he had been reminded by this 
youthful sinner of certain parables mentioned in the Gos- 
pels, which speak of the great joy in heaven caused by 
the sincere repentance of truly humble sinners. Finally, 
through love and sympathy, Herxen gained his end. The 
boy returned and was absolved’. 

A man like this was bound to make enemies. Groote 
had preached the same views about repentance; he too 
had drawn a careful distinction between the true Church, 
consisting of a small group of devout believers, and the 
outer court, where many clergymen were dwelling. 
Groote, the first leader of the ‘““New Devotion’, had 
ruthlessly torn down the idols of indolence, self-in- 
dulgence, and mammon worship. His example was now 
being followed by Theodore Herxen, the fourth and last 
universally recognized leader of the same movement. 
And since Groote had been persecuted, Herxen could 
hardly escape the same fate. 

There was a certain Liefard, rector of the Sisters of 
the Common Life in one of their six houses at Zwolle, 
who had failed to perform his duties as rector and con- 
fessor. As Liefard had many rich friends at Zwolle, 
Herxen was unable to remove him from his office. In 
the meantime the news of Liefard’s scandalous behavior 
reached the bishop of Utrecht, and the man was im- 
prisoned. Shortly before the imprisonment Liefard’s 
friend, Theodore Henso, pastor at Zwolle, together with 
the cathedral chapter of St. Lebwin at Deventer had 
begun to compel the Sisters of the Common Life at 


108 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Zwolle to confess to the chaplains of his parish. This 
had grieved Herxen very much, for evidently the chap- 
lains in question did not take life so seriously as one 
might expect of servants of Christ. Herxen went to 
Cologne, but the archiepiscopal curia of that city was 
bribed by his enemies at Deventer and Zwolle, wherefore 
he was now threatened with excommunication. One day 
the kind, old rector was hissed out of the church by a 
shouting mob, who, instigated by their spiritual father, 
cried: ‘Throw the Beghard into the water’. The pastor 
even prohibited Herxen from hearing confessions of the 
school boys, although one of his predecessors had given 
Herxen this privilege, while it had been confirmed by 
Frederick van Blankenheim, bishop of Utrecht*®. 
Herxen was followed by Albert Paep of Calcar 
(1457-1482). Thinking to divert for a time at least 
the dangers of attack from the various office-holders in 
the church of St. Michael, he invited the city council 
and the vicars of the local parish to supper one day. 
The magistrates were very sociable, but the vicars 
adopted a haughty attitude toward the humble brethren. 
“We discovered’, says the chronicler, “that we had made 
no progress, for the vicars did not want to be corrected 
by us’’**. Although he does not tell us what the brethren 
wished to discuss with the vicars, we can easily guess 
their intention. It had long been the custom among the 
Brethren of the Common Life to confess their own 
faults to each other, as Zerbolt had pointed out in his 
“On the Common Life”. Christ had warned his disciples 
never to speak evil of any one, except to the person who 
committed the evil in question. That there was a great 
deal amiss with the Church during the closing years of 
the fifteenth century must have been apparent to all 
honest men and women. It had been one of Groote’s 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 109 


chief tasks to point out the existing evils, but it was to 
the clergy themselves in his “Sermon against the Immoral 
Clergy”. When he addressed the clergy, he spoke of 
their many faults, and the people’s shortcomings were 
exposed in the people’s presence. Such had been Groote’s 
method in trying to reform the Church. His reformation 
had been continued by the Brethren of the Common Life. 
But exactly where he had met with the strongest resist- 
ance, they also were opposed. Hence Albert Paep, the 
third rector at Zwolle, had to cancel those suppers with 
the vicars of the local parish. 

Albert Paep was in turn followed by other rectors, 
whose names need not be mentioned here**; and, as was 
the case with the house at Deventer, a few brief remarks 
about the buildings belonging to the society will suffice. 
Mention has been made of the chief building, the “House 
of Gregory”, where the brethren themselves lived*. 
Several other buildings were used to house the great 
crowds of school boys from Frisia, Flanders, Brabant, 
Westphalia, Trier, Cologne, Liége, and Holland. There 
was the “Domus divitum scolarium’” (‘House for Rich 
Boys”) for boys with means*?; the “Domus vicina” 
(“House next door’), or “Parva domus’” (“Small 
House”), also for those whose expenses were paid by 
their parents or guardians; the “Domus pro medio- 
cribus” (‘‘House for the Middle Classes’), where boys 
were lodged who paid part of their expenses*’; and the 
“Domus pauperum scolarium” (‘‘House for Poor Stu- 
dents” )*°. As for the property donated to the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Zwolle, a long list of documents 
has been published by Dr. Schoengen, which shows that 
the brethren had other sources of income besides the 
copying of books*. 


110 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Ill 


The brethren-houses of Deventer and Zwolle until the 
year 1520 were the two chief centres of the “New 
Devotion” outside of the monasteries. By these two 
all the other houses of the new brotherhood were found- 
ed, either directly or indirectly. As early as the year 
1395 Radewijns, the first rector of the brethren at 
Deventer, was asked to found a congregation at Amers- 
foort. Three clerks were sent by him in the same year™. 
The next place in the Netherlands to ask for a few 
missionaries of the common life, was the city of Delft, 
where the magistrates, having heard of the rising fame 
and the good works of the brethren at Deventer, were 
anxious to secure a similar society of copyists’ and 
teachers. The procurator of the ‘““Nova Domus” together 
with other members of the house at Deventer were sent 
to Delft. This seems to have occurred in the year 1403**. 
There also was a house at Hoorn for a few years**, which 
must be looked upon as a daughter-institution of the 
house at Deventer. 

The first house founded by the men of Zwolle was 
that of Albergen, in eastern Overyssel. Its foundation 
took place in the year 1406*°. The next house was 
founded in 1407 at Hulsbergen near Hattem, a short 
distance west of the Yssel**, and the one after that in 
1424 at ’s-Hertogenbosch*’. In 1425 the brethren at 
Zwolle were compelled to leave their house on account of 
an interdict**. They moved to Doesburg, where a new 
community was established in 1426*°. The house at 
Groningen was founded between 1426 and 1432", that 
of Harderwijk on the Zuiderzee in 1441", also by the 
brethren of Zwolle, the one at Gouda in 1445 by the 
brethren at Delft®?, at Utrecht in 1474, also by the house 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE IIL 


at Delft®*, and at Nijmegen in 1469 or 1470, by the 
brethren of ’s-Hertogenbosch**. The Brethren of the 
Common Life also had a house at Berlikum in Fries- 
land’, but at present we know very little about its 
history. The same is true of those other houses which 
may have existed without leaving us any records of their 
history. For as long as the minutes of the annual meet- 
ings held by the Brethren of the Common Life of the 
above-named houses at Zwolle have not been discovered, 
we shall know very little about the less important houses. 

In Germany, the brethren had many houses. There 
was a congregation at Munster from the year 1400, 
founded by Henry of Ahaus, a missionary of the Deven- 
ter house’’. The same Henry of Ahaus instituted a 
society at Cologne in the year 1417 or earlier®’. There 
was a congregation at Osterberg near Osnabrtick as 
early as the year 1410°°, and one at Osnabritck from 
1415°°, at Herford from 1428°°, at Wesel from 1436, 
and at Hildesheim since 1440”. The brethren at Cologne 
founded the houses at Wiesbaden, Butzbach near Mainz, 
K6nigstein on the Taunus, and Wolf on the Moselle®. 
There were important houses at Rostock**, Magdeburg*®’, 
Marburg’, Cassel*’, and Emmerich®*, and less important 
ones in Wurtemberg®®; also one at Kempen”, and at 
Culm in Poland”. 

In the Southern Low Countries houses of the Brethren 
of the Common Life were founded at Ghent”, Ant- 
werp”, Brussels**, Grammont**, Mechlin’™*, Cambray"’, 
Liége™, Louvain”, and Wynoksberg®. 

The Sisters of the Common Life also succeeded in 
founding a large number of houses, particularly in the 
Yssel valley. At Deventer they had five houses****. At 
Zwolle there were six*®. There were three houses at 
Zutphen, two at Doesburg, Kampen and Lochem, two at 


112 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Utrecht, one at Arnhem, Doetinchem, Gorinchem, and 
a host of other places*’. The “House of Master Gerard” 
at Deventer, the first institution, founded a community 
at Sonsbeke, Xanten, Essen, and Cologne®’, and reform- 
ed the houses at Neuss*®*, Calcar®°, and Emmerich”. The 
house of the brethren at Zwolle had charge of nineteen: 
sister-houses™. ; 

Not all of the houses founded by the brethren or 
sisters of Deventer and Zwolle were equally prosperous, 
however. We have seen how the first institution of the 
brothers at Zwolle was a failure, inasmuch as the men 
had left the city for a community where only a few 
people were found to give them employment and still 
fewer school boys®*. Nearly all the brethren at Amers- 
foort joined the Fransiscans in 1399%*. Between 1399 
and 1405 the house regained part of its former strength, 
but in 1405 the majority of its members entered the 
monastery of St. Andriescamp*, and in 1415 became 
Augustinian Canons Regular of the Windesheim Con- 
gregation®’®. Two years afterwards, however, they left 
the monastery’, and from that time the success of the 
house at Amersfoort was assured. At Delft the brothers. 
were compelled by circumstances to exchange their rules 
for those of the third rule of St. Francis. In 1433 they 
joined the Augustinians Regular®*. Before 1436 the 
house was again occupied by Brethren of the Common 
Life, who remained there as such until Delft became 
Calvinistic®. The house at Hoorn perished without 
leaving records of perceptible influence, which may also. 
be said of the house at Berlikum. As for the institution 
founded at Albergen in 1406, it was changed into a 
monastery of the Windesheim Congregation in the year 
1447*°°. Albergen evidently was too small a place to 
support a brethren-house. After the vear 1447 it became 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 113 = 


the policy of the brothers at Deventer and Zwolle to 
recognize no houses founded in small towns. When the 
institution at Gouda for example asked for such official 
recognition, it was refused, as Gouda was said to be too 
small and too poor a place’. Not until 1456, that is, 
eleven years after the foundation of the house at Gouda, 
was it accepted as a member of the organization’’’. 

At Culm in Poland (Culm became a part of Poland 
in 1466), near the frontier of Prussia, the brethren 
were confronted with difficulties of an entirely different 
nature. They had been invited by a certain Balthasar, 
a native of East Prussia, who, attracted by the fame of 
the school at Zwolle, had left his home in search of 
western culture. It was no small matter to migrate to 
so distant a country; nevertheless the brethren readily 
had granted Balthasar’s request. Three men were sent 
in 1472. The country around Culm was not so pleasant 
a sight as the green pastures along the Yssel, or the 
smiling fields near Zwolle. The town itself contained 
but a few inhabitants, and not a single carpenter among 
them. A little hut was given to the brethren, — very 
shabby, and unfurnished, but it was love which prompted 
the owners to give it to them. Others there were, how- 
ever, who vaguely wondered what those three foreigners 
wanted in lonely Culm. The brethren responded: ‘We 
have come here to instruct your children in the ‘sciences’ 
and virtues, as we are doing in the bishopric of Utrecht”’. 
Indescribable were the hardships which the brethren 
underwent. It was not long before the mendicant monks 
began to attack them, who themselves were not even 
keeping their own vows. Other monks there were not. 
The three brethren remained there for two years; then 
they could hold out no longer. Two of the three, to- 
gether with the rector of the school they had founded 


114 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


at Culm, returned to Zwolle, but not in despair. The 
harvest was great, they said, and the laborers few. They 
should send some experienced brethren together with a 
few students, and liberally provide them with funds. 
After some deliberation the request was granted. Several 
brethren were sent from time to time, and large sums 
of money. A flourishing school was founded, which in 
cooperation with the labors of the brethren finally re- 
sulted in the moral and intellectual uplift of a consider- 
able part of East Prussia and Poland’. 

Great as were the difficulties which the Brethren of 
the Common Life had to face, the sisters were as a rule 
still more hardly pressed. We must never lose sight of 
the fact that they were living in an age when the 
superiority of the monastic state was almost universally 
recognized. As long as those disciples of Groote upon 
whom part of the master’s spirit seemed to have 
descended, remained near them, they were able to 
hold their own. But about the year 1400 the majority 
of the communities were compelled to adopt the third 
rule of St. Francis, particularly those so far removed 
from the Yssel valley that they lost contact with 
the houses at Deventer and Zwolle**. Although the 
Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life were not 
hostile to monasticism, they were always and everywhere 
fighting the battle of self-preservation against the various 
monastic orders. A great many of the noblest monks 
in the Low Countries, Germany, and Northern France 
had proceeded from the ranks of the new brotherhood, 
and yet the whole institution was a living protest against 
the decadent monasticism of the fifteenth century. 
Groote’s brotherhood was one of the chief causes of that 
phase of the Reformation which in certain regions in- 
volved the disappearance of monasticism, and everywhere 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 115 


in the West produced a growing desire for more personal 
faith, more religion in the schools, more knowledge of 
the Bible, a saner method of discipline, and a reaction 
against all manner of empty formalism, including the 
return to the use of the people’s language, be it Dutch, 
German, French, or English. 


IV 


How did the Brethren of the Common Life usually 
pass their time, and what were the most characteristic 
features of their organization? Their constitutions, 
which were practically uniform in Germany, and nearly 
so in the Low Countries, together with a number of 
chronicles, treatises, and biographies, enable us to gain 
a fairly accurate knowledge of their daily work, habits, 
and ideals. 

“Our house was founded”, the brethren of Deventer 
and Zwolle wrote, “with the intention that priests and 
clerics might live there, supported by their own manual 
labor, namely, the copying of books, and the returns 
from certain estates; attend church with devotion, obey 
the prelates, wear simple clothing, preserve the canons 
and decrees of the saints, practise religious exercises, 
and lead not only irreproachable, but exemplary lives, in 
order that they may serve God and perchance induce 
others to seek salvation. Since the final end of religion 
consists in purity of heart, without which we shall seek 
perfection in vain, let it be our daily aim to purge our 
poisoned hearts from sin, so that in the first place we 
may learn to know ourselves, pass judgment upon the 
vices and passions of our minds, and endeavor with all 
our strength to eradicate them; despise temporal gain, 
crush selfish desires, aid others in overcoming sin, and 


116 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


concentrate our energy on the acquisition of true virtues, 
such as humility, love, chastity, patience, and obedience. 
Toward this end we must direct all our spiritual exer- 
cises: prayer, meditation, reading, manual labor, watch- 
ing, fasting, — in short, the harmonious development of 

our internal and external powers’’”. 3 

“Whereas the fear of the Lord is necessary to those 
who wish to overcome evil, it is expedient for each of 
us to meditate on such subjects as induce man to fear 
the Lord, like sin, death, judgment, and hell. But lest 
continued fear might engender dejection and despair, we 
shall have to add more hopeful subject matter for medi- 
tation, such as the kingdom of heaven, the blessings of 
God, the life of Jesus Christ, and his passion. These 
subjects we shall arrange in such a way that on Saturdays 
we shall meditate on sin, Sundays on the kingdom of 
heaven, Mondays on death, Tuesdays on the blessings 
of God, Wednesdays on the final judgment, Thursdays 
on the pains of hell, and Fridays on the passion of 
Christ’’*°°, it E52 

The constitutions further state that the brethren were 
to rise between three and four o’clock in the morning 
(later shortly before five), preparing themselves at once 
for prayer and the reading of certain prescribed selec- 
tions*®’, All the members of the house were expected to 
attend the daily mass, and were exhorted to free their 
mind from all distractions, “thus preparing themselves, 
as it were, for a spiritual communion’”*™. 

Since it was considered most beneficial for all men 
to perform some manual labor every day, the brethren 
would be expected to spend several hours a day in copy- 
ing religious books, or else in performing other tasks. 
But lest the spirit suffer from neglect, they should 
occasionally utter short prayers, called ‘“ejaculations’?”. 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 117 


The brethren were to consume their meals in silence, in 
order that they might pay proper attention to the reading 
of a selection from the Bible’. After supper they could 
do as they pleased in their own rooms till eight o’clock. 
At eight all guests would have to leave the house. The 
doors were shut fast, and silence was observed till half 
past eight, when they went to bed’. 

On Sundays and holidays certain passages in the 
Scriptures were read and explained; and in this connec- 
tion there was opportunity for general discussion, when 
each member of the house could freely express his 
opinions, as long as he did not indulge in impractical 
disputes and argumentations. The school boys and other 
people were invited to attend the discussions which were 
held in the vernacular’’, The influence thus exerted upon 
the common people by the brethren is incalculable. For 
not only were there a great many among them whose 
fame as orators brought people long distances to hear 
them, but it was their combined, their continued efforts, 
which must have brought tangible results, considering 
the great number of holy days they observed. Not one 
of them was as famous as a Brugman, Wycliff, Hus, or 
Savonarola, but they formed a vast organization. Their 
voices were seldom heard on the streets, for they wished 
to avoid publicity. Nevertheless, their influence, though 
not always manifested visibly, reached the minds of 
thousands, while the books they circulated reached still 
larger numbers. They continued their labors in an order- 
ly way. Like the persistent drops of water, which in the 
course of time even form impressions on the most solid 
rocks, so did the efforts of the Brethren of the Common 
Life affect the most perverse sinners. One could always 
rely on their addresses. The brethren were always ready 
to help the sick and comfort the afflicted. And the 


118 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


school boys could always get a room in their dormitories, 
no matter whether they were able to pay for them or 
not. By avoiding notoriety and scandal, by preaching 
reform to all men and women without stressing unduly 
the faults of the clergy, the brethren labored, — un- 
noticed by those historians who record only the interrup-_ 
tions against the course of nature, against peaceful 
reform and bloodless revolution, thereby ignoring the 
great movement which throughout the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries helped to change the medieval mind into 
the modern mind. 

The most interesting feature about the brethren’s 
labors as preachers was their informal addresses. On 
Sundays and holy days the people were accustomed to 
assemble in the room designated for this purpose. A 
chapter of the Bible was read in the people’s language 
which contained some practical advice or instruction. 
Those passages in particular were selected which in very 
plain words taught the people how to “extinguish vice, 
acquire virtue, despise worldly things, and fear the. 
Lord”. Thereupon all members of the house, in so far 
as they were gifted by nature to act as spiritual guides 
of the masses, would be expected to exhort the people, 
either separately in their respective rooms, or in address- 
ing the whole assembly in turns. But they were not to 
preach, the constitutions**® state, — merely to exhort 
and instruct. Confession of sins, and mutual correction 
were looked upon by the brethren as very helpful means 
of combatting evil™*. 

As time went on the Brethren of the Common Life 
found it necessary to appoint rectors, procurators, librari- 
ans, and several other office-holders. In the constitutions 
of the houses at Deventer and Zwolle the duties of the 
rector’**, procurator’’*, librarian’, tailor’**, and nurse™® 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 119 


were carefully outlined; several other offices were treated 
together in one chapter’*®, though later they were more 
elaborately discussed in the constitutions used by the 
German houses, belonging to the “Colloquium of 
Miunster’’**. 

The houses of the Brethren of the Common Life in 
the Low Countries used to send representatives to their 
annual meeting, called “Colloquium Zwollense’. Another 
means of preserving discipline and unity were the annual 
visitations by two rectors, preferably those of Zwolle 
and Deventer’. The houses in Germany, of which the 
one at Miinster was the chief, also were visited in the 
same manner’”*, There also were held monthly meetings 
in each house, where divers matters relating to discipline, 
religious exercises, or manual labor could be discussed’. 

Each house should, if possible, have four priests and 
some other members of the clergy. If somebody applied 
for admission, the brethren were required to examine 
his physical condition, and his mental equipment; he 
should be asked from which country he had come. He 
would be asked, also, whether he could write, and loved 
to read books. In case he was found to be in good health 
and of sound mind and habits, he would be allowed to 
remain in the house for two or three months, whereupon 
he might be promoted to a further trial of ten or twelve 
months. After this lapse of time he might become a 
Brother of the Common Life, having first sworn before 
a notary public and in the presence of some witnesses 
that he renounced all claim to any property of his own’”®. 
Members could be expelled in case of ill-behavior’”®. The 
brethren were exhorted to preserve mutual love, peace, 
and harmony’’, and although none of them would be 
expected to take the vows of chastity and obedience, 
nevertheless they all should strive to cultivate these 


120 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


virtues’**. The virtue of humility in particular was highly 
extolled by the brethren at Deventer and Zwolle’. No 
member of the brotherhood was to have any property 
of his own, as it had been ceded by him to the house on 
being admitted as a member there. They were to spend 
a part of their income to meet current expenses, and the 
remainder for the relief of the poor’®®. As for the other — 
regulations found in the various constitutions, they need 
not be commented upon here**’. 7 

The Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life may 
well be called practical mystics, in distinction from such 
men as John Ruysbroeck. Love for their neighbor im- 
pelled them to work among the people in the cities. Their 
highest aim was the reformation of the Church, which 
could most effectively be done, they thought, by educating 
the youths of the land, and by instructing the common 
people in the essentials of the Christian religion. They 
paid much attention to their “spiritual natures’, or their | 
“inner selves’. Formed in the image of God, as they 
believed, and assured by Christ that the kingdom of 
heaven is found within the human heart, they continually 
strove to explore their inner lives, to unite their inner 
selves with God or Christ, and thus regain their lost 
heritage**’. They were also much given to meditation’. 

As Christian mystics they constantly aimed to imitate 
the lives of Christ, and the apostles. They loved to seek 
- parallels between Christ’s life and their own™*, for their 
religion was one of action, of deeds. Groote had in- 
structed them to read the Gospels and the lives of the 
Church Fathers in preference to\ other books, as the 
former contained biographies**’. Paul’s Epistles and the 
various books of the Old Testament were by no means 
neglected by them, however’*®. As they read the Acts 
of the Apostles, the thought must often have struck 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 121 


them that it was not at all necessary for a good Christian 
to seek refuge in a monastery. At any rate, their desire 
to win ever more souls for Christ kept them in the cities. 
“We have decided”, the Brethren of the Common Life 
at Zwolle wrote in 1415, “to live in cities, in order that 
we may be able to give advice and instruction to clerics 
and other persons who wish to serve the Lord’’**’. One 
of the most successful ways by which the brothers at 
Deventer won the hearts of young men, was the church 
drama’***, Theodore Herxen, as we saw above'*’, devoted 
several treatises to the “art of drawing boys to God”. 
Both the Brethren and the Sisters of the Common Life 
were particularly fond of finding practical lessons in 
the selections read from the Scriptures at their meals. 
These lessons they tried to remember for the purpose 
of applying them on specific occasions, and for the sake 
of mutual exhortation**®. Another feature of their prac- 
tical mysticism was the collection of excerpts from writ- 
ings perused by them. These were called “good points” 
or “rapiaria’’***, Special notebooks or slips of paper 
were at all times kept in readiness in order to improve 
their knowledge™’. 

The Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life, in 
conscientiously following Christ, gloried in self-denial, 
poverty, humility, and obedience***, but if we bear in 
mind the circumstances under which they had founded 
and sought to develop their institution, we may say that 
their outlook upon life was quite free from excessive 
asceticism. True, they lived very soberly: their meals 
were extremely simple***, their clothing at first scarcely 
respectable***. But whatever may have been their worst 
form of mortifying the flesh, their asceticism was of a 
mild nature**®. And as time went on, experience taught 
them that stinting the body does in no way enhance the 


122 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


beauty of the soul, or the dignity of the spirit. Conse- 
quently, we find that after the year 1400 they dressed 
more properly**’, used more wholesome meals***, reduced 
the number of hours devoted to copying books***, took 
more exercises in the open air*®’, lived less estranged 
from ‘‘worldly” people’, and also acquired more respect. 
for learning as a final end*®”. 


V 


It has often been asserted by scholars of late that the 
Brethren of the Common Life paid little or no attention 
to education’**. On the other hand one also frequently 
reads statements to the effect that they even made their 
living by teaching***. Once again the sources should be 
consulted, rather than the conflicting opinions of modern 
scholars. In the first place, then, let it be understood that 
the brothers at Deventer never had a real school of their 
own there, nor did any of their members teach in the 
cathedral school of that city until several years after the 
death of Radewijns**®. There were two schools at 
Deventer during the days of Groote and Radewijns’”®. 
From 1378 till 1381 they were both supervised by 
William Vroede, Groote’s friend, who upon Groote’s 
advice brought about certain reforms in these two 
schools**’. As rector of the cathedral school he was 
succeeded by John Lubberts (1381-1385)***, and not by 
Florentius Radewijns, as some writers believe. 

At Zwolle John Cele was rector of the city school 
from 1375 till 14177°°. His educational labors, which 
were imitated at Deventer, together with the assistance 
freely accorded to the school boys by the Brethren of 
the Common Life and the other disciples of Groote at 
Deventer and Zwolle, were causes which made the schools 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 123 


of Zwolle and Deventer famous long before the days of 
Hegius. It will be remembered that under the admin- - 
istration of Cele the attendance at the school at Zwolle 
rose to 1200. The hearty welcome extended by those 
pious matrons and the kind-hearted brethren must have 
acted as a very powerful magnet for the boys who had 
come from Poland, the interior of Germany, the upper 
Rhine valley, and the distant shores of Flanders, where 
on their return they extended the influence of the school. 
The brothers themselves received their interest in educa- 
tion from Groote and Cele. Groote had always laid stress 
on the importance of offering a better education to future 
pastors. Hence his friendship with the teachers at 
Deventer and Zwolle. The brethren, in inheriting most 
of Groote’s ideals, soon shared his views on the need of 
a better education, particularly for those boys who in- 
tended some day to join the ranks of the clergy. Groote’s 
chief aim had been the reform of the Church; the surest 
and quickest way to reach that happy end in his opinion 
was the training of young men. This training should 
by no means exclude the study of literature, pagan or 
classic as well as Christian; while grammar, rhetoric, 
logic, mathematics, and philosophy were to retain their 
places in the curriculum. Cele materialized Groote’s plans 
at Zwolle, aided as he was by the brethren in that city. 
Not long after his death the reform inaugurated by him 
spread to Deventer and many other places where Groote’s 
disciples had founded brethren-houses. 

At Amersfoort the brethren never had a school of 
their own, and for more than a century after the founda- 
tion of their home, none of them seem to have taught 
in-that city. We find, however, that in 1529 one of the 
brothers was forbidden to teach school by the city council, 
at least until the quarrel between him and the rector of 


124 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the city school was settled. During the years 1530 and 
1531 the magistrates were trying to secure a new rector 
for their school, and asked the brothers to pay his salary, 
“‘as had been the custom before’’*®*. The brethren, there- 
fore, appear to have been interested in the local school. 
At Cassel they taught school in their own house*™. At 
Culm the brethren, as was indicated above’’, founded 
a splendid new school, which helped to introduce the 
best fruits of Western education into East Prussia and 
Poland. At Delft twelve poor boys were usually provided 
by the brethren with food, clothing, and lodging. Where- 
as during the first period of their history in Delft they 
sent these boys to the public school for instruction*®, 
later on the latter were taught by the brethren them- 
selves***. A boarding school was founded at Doesburg’®, 
while at Gouda*®*®, Ghent*®’, and Grammont*® they had 
schools of their own, as well as at Groningen*”, ’s-Her- 
togenbosch*”, Liége*”, Magdeburg’*”, Marburg*”*, Nij- 
megen*"*, Rostock’”, and Utrecht’”®. At Mechlin they 
formed part of the local school-board*™’. Doubtless the 
brethren in other cities conducted a like work*”. — 

The most important schools were found at Deventer, 
Zwolle, and Miinster, where also the most influential 
brethren-houses had been established. A complete proof 
of the excellence of these schools was given by John 
Sturm, the celebrated rector at Strasbourg, when he 
outlined the plans of his “gymnasium” to the magistrates 
of the Alsatian metropolis’. He did not recommend 
the schools of Cologne, of Louvain, and of Trier, and 
preferred Deventer to Utrecht. Nor was Sturm the only 
teacher who acknowledged the debt he owed to Cele’s 
followers, as will be seen later. 

John Cele was succeeded as rector of the town school 
at Zwolle by Livinius of Middelburg, one of Groote’s 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 125 


followers***, and he in turn by Herman Kerstken*. 
About the year 1432 John van Dalen was appointed rec- 
tor’®*; he helped to usher in a second period of prosperity 
enjoyed by the public school at Zwolle, aided as he was 
by the Brethren of the Common Life***. Again several 
hundred boys came flocking to Zwolle from all direc- 
tions***. Several buildings had to be erected by the 
brothers to lodge them, but even these did not suffice. 
Many kind mothers were induced to open their doors to 
one or more of them. Their own mothers and aunts had 
done so in the days of John Cele, when they themselves 
had often asked where all those strangers had come from; 
and many a pious father had once gone to that same 
school, where he had been taught so well that for many 
years the maxims of Zwolle’s learned teacher were upon 
his lips, when friends of his youth would come to visit 
him?***! 

It is no wonder that among all those boys at least a 
few great minds were found. And where Groote’s ideas _ 
were acted upon with so much tender devotion, where so 
much love was lavished upon responsive hearts, and such 
ideals were expounded as the “Imitation of Christ” con- 
tained, the school at Zwolle could not fail to send out 
once more a host of religious youths. The names of 
most of these boys have. been lost to memory, and of 
the others only a few can be mentioned here. Naturally 
one turns first to him who became the most famous 
educator in Transalpine Europe, — to Alexander Hegius. 

Hegius was born near the village of Heek in West- 
phalia in 1433*®*. He was teacher at Wesel in 1474, and 
from 1475-1483 taught school at Emmerich**’, no doubt 
supported in the usual way by Brethren of the Common 
Life, who had a house in each of these two places, while 
at Emmerich they had founded two dormitories for the 


126 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


pupils of the local school***. In 1483 Hegius was appoint- 
ed rector of the school attached to St. Lebwin’s at 
Deventer’®*, where he remained until his death in 14987*°. 
When teaching school at Emmerich he had become ac- — 
quainted with Agricola, of whom he learned Greek’. 
Gansfort also was an intimate friend of his, as appears” 
from one of his letters**’. Anxious to promote the study 
of the classics, he encouraged his pupils to learn both 
Latin and Greek. He himself had been taught Greek too 
late to master that language so well as some of his con- 
temporaries’**. But he was always eager to learn more, 
and diligently read the classics and the Fathers™. 

Alexander Hegius, though he may be called one of the 
leading humanists of the late fifteenth century, as he 
showed a great interest in the study of the Ancients, was 
nevertheless too closely associated with the Brethren of 
the Common Life to despise the use of the vernacular, 
as so many scholars of his time were doing’®®. As poet, 
he became the forerunner of the “younger humanists”, 
and, although he lacked real poetic enthusiasm, his labors 
in this direction are nevertheless of historical signific- 
ance’*”®, 

His school at Deventer grew to 2200 pupils. This was 
due in part to the assistance given him by the brethren. 
At Zwolle he had been instructed in what might be called 
the rudiments of Christian education. The ideals of the 
Christian Renaissance were never opposed to art or 
learning, as many a manuscript will show us to-day, 
written and illuminated as they were by the Augustinian 
Canons Regular and the Brethren of the Common Life. 
Before Hegius began the study of Greek, he had managed 
to attract fifteen hundred pupils to his school at Em- 
merich. In 1475 he was not yet a humanist in the proper 
sense of the word. Still his fame had reached the cities 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 127 


of Trier, Cologne, Strasbourg, Liege, Magdeburg, and 
other centres of learning. His love of poetry, of the 
Greek language, and of ancient letters in general were 
not the causes of his early fame. The secret of his 
success lay deeper than that. It was the favorable cir- 
cumstances attending the presence of the brothers at 
Wesel and Emmerich, Hegius’ early instruction at Zwolle, 
and the peculiar bent of his nature which enabled him 
to become Cele’s truest successor. Hegius was not a 
Petrarch nor a wandering humanist like Agricola or 
Hermann von dem Busche, to name some of the best 
types of the true humanists, but he was the greatest 
educator of Transalpine Europe in the fifteenth century, 
and the marvelous success he enjoyed as teacher from 
1474 till 1498 he owed mainly to the work of two men: 
Gerard Groote, founder of the Brethren of the Common 
Life, and John Cele, who inaugurated, upon Groote’s 
advice, the reform which turned into the revival of learn- 
ing in Northern Europe. This revival till 1455 developed 
wholly independently of the Italian Renaissance and later 
added the best thoughts of the classics, in so far as they 
were discovered by Italian humanists, to its great store- 
house of medieval learning. Hegius, in continuing Cele’s 
work, advocated a reform in the text-books. The 
“Medulla” was not worth being read any longer, he 
said**’. On the last page of his “Invectiva” he gives a 
list of grammars which should be altered. Throughout 
this whole essay, in fact, he indicates the need of better 
text-books. As for.-style, he asserted in his ‘“Farrago” 
that one should appropriate the diction of Cicero, Virgil, 
and Sallust, and imitate the Italian humanists. The 
“Disciplina Scholarium’’, the “Gemma Gemmarum”’, and 
the Lexica of Hugutio Brito and John Januensis, should 
be cast aside as no longer worthy of study’®*. Here he 


128 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


does not speak as a true medievalist, but appears to have 
absorbed some of the ideas of the Italian Renaissance. 

A striking portrait of Hegius was drawn by Butz- 
bach, one of his last pupils**®’. It shows him not only a 
scholar and teacher. As a true child of. the “New 
Devotion’, he directed much of his attention to the relief _ 
of the poor, the sick, and the afflicted, a practice in which 
he differed from humanists of the Italian type. When 
death claimed him*°’, he was followed to the grave by a 
mourning crowd of grateful men, women, and children, 
who loved and revered him. All his possessions he had 
spent in “helping to extend God’s kingdom on earth’. 
Other humanists have received greater praise from Eras- 
mus and others’**, but where some of his contemporaries 
were greater scholars, his influence upon the several 
thousand pupils sent out by him to reform the Church 
in the Low Countries, Germany, and France, was greater 
than that of a mere scholar. For instance, Agricola and 
Mutian Rufus did not leave thousands of students behind 
who eagerly and unitedly carried out their plans for 
reform in school, church, and monastery. They -were 
not constructive, though great critics. Butzbach rightly 
pointed out the difference between the thorough reform 
instituted by Hegius and the ineffective work of the 
shifting, homeless humanists of the Erfurt type. “Now- 
adays”, he says, “one only has to give presents in order 
to get a degree. Knowledge is no longer the first essen- 
tial’’2°4. 

It was easy enough for the wandering Bohemians of 
learning in the early sixteenth century to poke fun at 
existing conditions. All negative criticism is easy. When 
it came to actual reform, however, it was the school at 
Deventer which furnished the required missionaries. 
Thus it had been in the early years of the fifteenth cen- 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 129 


tury, and so it remained throughout the whole life-time 
of Hegius. The priors were always glad to get recruits 
from Deventer?®. While certain contemporaries of his, 
like the celebrated Anton Vrye, or Liber, were soon for- 
gotten after their death, Hegius continued to be a living 
force in the hamlets and cities of the Yssel valley and — 
beyond’”®. 

During the rectorate of Hegius, then, Deventer was 
one of the chief centres of the movement usually referred 
to as the German Renaissance. The best thoughts of the 
Italian Renaissance were absorbed at Deventer and 
Zwolle, and from there they entered Germany, now trans- 
formed by the “New Devotion’, or Christian Renais- 
sance, which.had now become an intellectual movement, 
though its chief aim remained the restoration of the 
Church in all its members”’. An index of how strong 
an intellectual movement this was, is the fact that many 
classics were issued from the presses at Deventer before 
1500: more than four hundred and fifty works”. 

One of the best known humanists of the Yssel valley 
type was Ortwin Gratius, a man of great learning, and 
sound judgment. Few of his contemporaries were such 
warm advocates of the revival of ancient learning as he; 
not many equalled his scholarly equipment; his poems 
were unusually fine, his Latin quite praiseworthy. Few 
men have ever been so shamefully and so unjustly attack- 
ed as he, not only by his contemporaries but also by later 
writers. The investigations of three modern historians, 
however, have vindicated his claim to the title of Chris- 
tian humanist, scholar, poet, and educator”. 

Much might be written about other pupils of the 
Brethren of the Common Life, some of whom taught 
school while they were members of the celebrated brother- 
hood. Thus the schools at Deventer and Zwolle not only 


130 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


served as a means of improving intellectual standards 
among the clergy, but offered preparatory courses for 
students intending to enter the universities, and also 
sent out a great number of teachers to other cities. So 
great was their number that in the Netherlands scarcely 
a school could be found during the opening years of the © 
sixteenth century, where there was not felt at least some 
connection with the Yssel valley “gymnasia’’”*®. In Ger- 
many at that time, and throughout the preceding century, 
if one were to study the origins of each of the early 
secondary schools throughout the North and West, he 
would undoubtedly be able to trace the influence of 
Deventer and Zwolle. Mention can only be made here 
of the two chief centres of the German Renaissance, that 
is, the two schools which contributed most largely to the 
dissemination of learning in Germany from 1450 till 
1520, — the schools of Schlettstadt and Muiinster. 

For several centuries Strasbourg had been the eccles- 
iastical and intellectual metropolis of Alsace. With Trier, 
Cologne, Liége, Aachen, and Utrecht it had possessed 
a sort of educational monopoly in the regions which once 
had separated Germany from France. But conditions did 
not always remain thus. Cologne and Trier began to 
send their most promising sons to little Zwolle, which 
was only an insignificant parish in the diocese of Utrecht, 
but the town of Cele’s school. It was not long before 
Alsace developed a similar situation. 

A Westphalian teacher, named Louis Dringenberg, 
who had been trained at Deventer”"*, came to Schlettstadt 
in 1441. Here, for a period of 36 years, he was rector 
of the public or town school’”. There were no Brethren 
of the Common Life in Schlettstadt, which may account 
for the fact that he was unable to draw such vast 
numbers of pupils to his school as Cele had done to 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 131 


Zwolle, but this school at Schlettstadt eventually sur- 
passed that at Strasbourg. The reason was given by 
Charles Schmidt, the author of the “Histoire littéraire de 
l Alsace’: ‘While thus Strasbourg and most other cities 
lagged behind, Schlettstadt already possessed a flourish- 
ing school. Founded about the middle of the fifteenth 
century and supervised by the magistrates, its rector was 
the Westphalian Louis Dringenberg, who had carried 
hither the spirit and method of the Brethren of the 
Common Life’’’*. More to the point is the following 
statement by G. C. Knod, another Alsatian scholar of 
note: “This spirit of pedagogical skill and pious wisdom, 
as it prevailed in the schools of the Brethren of the 
Common Life, had also asserted itself in the town school 
ore Schiéttstadt. 3)... It was the first school conducted 
by laymen in South-German regions which, in conscious 
deviation from the clerical institutions, outlined its scope 
and method after the humanistic fashion’”***. 

In several cities the Brethren of the Common Life had 
schools of their own, as at Rostock, Ghent, Liége, and 
Utrecht, while in almost every city where they had a 
house, one or more of the members of the brotherhood 
became school teachers, particularly after the year 1450, 
when, as time went on, the printed type made it un- 
necessary for them to continue their work as copyists. 
If one takes these facts into consideration, one can form 
a better opinion of the way in which Dringenberg brought 
this new “pedagogical spirit of the Brethren of the 
Common Life” from Deventer to Schlettstadt. He 
doubtless adopted much of the course he had followed 
at Deventer, where the teachers used Cele’s method of 
combining sound religious instruction with a well-selected 
list of studies, took due care of the pupils’ individual 
needs, preferred kind warnings to harsh punishment, 


132 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


sought to inculcate a love for individual research by 
letting pupils delve among the classics rather than confine 
themselves to text-books, and taught the boys the use of 
their vernacular as well. This method Dringenberg in- 


troduced at Schlettstadt. His successors continued his 


method in general?**??°. 


At Miinster the Brethren of the Common Life founded 
a house as early as the year 1400”. They did not found 


a school at that time, but aroused an interest in learning, 


which was very great during the second half of the 
fifteenth century’””**. This fact has been established 
by the research of Dr. Bomer, the librarian of the 
university at Munster’’*. Munster in the fifteenth cen- 
tury became the great gate-way through which the religi- 
ous and educational reforms of Groote’s followers 
entered Germany, passing Almelo, Frenswegen, Schiittorf, 
and Coesveld to Munster, and beyond, to Rostock, 
Hildesheim, Magdeburg, and even to Cologne and the 
Upper Rhine valley’’’. | 

Now it happened, as we saw, that both at Zwolle and 
at Deventer the schools were reformed and rendered 
famous mostly by men who were connected with the 
brotherhood. At Munster, when eventually the cathedral 
school was reformed, it was by Rudolph von Langen, 
who had attended school at Zwolle with Alexander 
Hegius. 

Impressed by the fame of Deventer’s school, Von 
Langen believed that the school of the ancient and 
celebrated cathedral of his own city should at least equal 
St. Lebwin’s at Deventer in luster. To secure a good 
rector, it has been said that he asked his old friend Hegius 
to come, but the sources leave the question undecided*”*. 
Von Langen appointed Timan Kemener, a pupil of 
Hegius**’, and in the year 1500 a thorough-going reform 


THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 133 


of Munster’s cathedral school began. His successor, 
John Murmellius, a native of Roermond, continued the 
work of educational reform. He had studied at Deventer 
and Cologne”’*, and in 1500 we find him teaching school 
at Miinster under the direction of Timan Kemener. In 
the cathedral school at Munster he taught till 1507, in 
the school of St. Martin, from 1507 till 1512, and from 
1512 till 1513 again in the cathedral school’’®. 

Few men so faithfully followed the policy outlined by 
Gerard Groote, and first practised by John Cele at 
Zwolle, Hegius at Emmerich and Deventer, and Dringen- 
berg at Schlettstadt, as Murmellius. He cared little for 
mere style and mere eloquence. Education would be a 
complete failure, he taught, if one concentrated all his 
energy on oratory and style**®. He freely criticized the 
lives of bad priests and monks’, as Groote also had done, 
and in his attack on the decadent forms of scholasticism 
so prevalent in his day, he simply repeated what Groote 
had said. He did not direct his assaults against philos- 
ophy, but against empty phrases, devoid of practical 
contents. To roam about the continent in search of fame 
and honor, as many mere humanists were doing, was a 
vocation not suited to his character. Not the love of self, 
he said, but the glory and honor of God should be the 
final aim of all instruction; all knowledge was useless 
without the acquisition of virtue”*?. Whereas many 
leaders of the Italian Renaissance studied the classics for 
style only, the men of Deventer, Zwolle, Schlettstadt, and 
Minster delved into the same mine and found there fine 
phrases, but greater treasures in wisdom. When they 
wrote, they proved themselves good stylists too. Mur- 
mellius, though he died at thirty-seven, published fifty 
works in fifteen years, some of which were wonderful 
store-houses of pedagogical, literary, philosophical, and 


134 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


historical value***. Considering his distinguished career 


as a teacher, it is astonishing how he contrived to pro- - 


duce so much. His text-books were popular in Germany 
for several generations; one of them passed through 
seventy-seven editions, and was used in the schools till 


1800?**. His “Pappa Puerorum” was published thirty- | 


two times in less than sixty years. In editing both classic 
and Christian writers he became a mighty force in the 
realm of revived learning’*®. In laying proper stress on 
physical and moral improvement, on grammatical con- 
structions, the proper study of art and literature, he 
aimed at that harmonious development of character which 
was possessed by the Greeks of old*®*. His commentary 
on Boethius shows how well he was acquainted with the 
classics. One remarkable feature about his works is the 
simple, clear style, the absence of pompous expressions. 
Better than most scholars of his time he knew how to 
compress brilliant thoughts into brief sentences**7, — a 
rare quality in a humanist of the early sixteenth century. 


And though he indulged in the use of satire, as was usual. 


at that time, his language remained remarkably free from 
revengeful or spiteful sarcasm***, as was unusual. 
Murmellius was assisted and followed at Miinster by 
other noteworthy teachers, such as John Pering, a former 
pupil of Hegius; Joseph Horlenius, a pupil of Pering; 
and Jacob Montanus, later a member of the Brethren of 
the Common Life at Herford, and a friend of Luther”*®. 
The fact is, Miinster and Deventer sent out so vast a 
host of really great scholars and teachers that it is quite 
impossible to enumerate them. Under their leadership 
practically all the larger schools in Western Germany 
were reorganized and reformed. Through them the 
benevolent influence of Cele’s work found its way into 
many a city where no Brethren of the Common Life 


| 
: 
a 





THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LITE 135 


were found, such as Attendorn, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, 
Eisleben, Essen, Litbeck, Luneburg, and Minden’*’. And 
as the pupils of these teachers in their turn continued 
Cele’s work, the literary productions and the educational 
reforms of Groote’s followers were diffused throughout 
the land, entering shop and farm-house, chapel and 
monastery, kitchen and workshop, appealing to the hearts 
of high and low, of rich and poor, of old and young. 
Who can calculate or describe the influence which thus 
radiated from the Yssel valley schools in all directions? 
Such influence never dies, and readers must have been 
impressed by the fact that modern education perpetuates 
the best features of the reformed education of Groote, 
and Cele, and the Brethren of the Common Life. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 
I 


Simultaneously with the development of the Brother-. 


hood of the Common Life came the rise of the Con- 
gregation of Windesheim, the centre from which pro- 
ceeded monastic reform, and from which many books 
were distributed. The Brethren-house at Deventer kept 
on sending recruits to the new monastery at Windesheim, 
until Radewijns, the rector of the brethren in Deventer, 
became somewhat alarmed. At last he sent a letter to 
John Vos, prior of Windesheim: “Beloved father John 
in Windesheim, I note that many are inclined to enter 
a monastery, and only a few come to our brethren-house. 


And though some at first prefer the brethren-house, 


where they are contented for some time, sooner or later, 
having become acquainted with your calm lives and 
saintly conversation, they are easily impelled to admire 
you, as happened with John Brinckerinck, who wanted 
very badly to be invested there’*. One feels in perusing 
the whole of this letter that Radewijns, in common with 
most men of his day, regarded the monastic state as 
something more saintly than any other. Brinckerinck 
had twice wanted to leave the brethren-house for a 
monastery”. John Vos himself had been one of the mem- 
bers of the brethren-house, before he had gone to Win- 
desheim. The monastery, it should be remembered, was 
erected in order to provide a place of shelter for the 
brethren in times of need. Here, amidst those dignified 
136 





THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 137 


rows of elms and willows and surrounded by smiling 
pastures, one would be three miles from the nearest city, 
and beside the silent waters. Here one could lead a life 
of rest and contemplation, undisturbed by school children 
and the bustle of busy streets. No wonder that so many 
members of the brethren-house were eager to go to 
Windesheim! And no wonder that Radewijns himself 
would have liked to leave Deventer, if: such a course of 
action had seemed proper-to him, for he writes on one 
occasion: “If it is convenient to you, I shall be glad to 
visit you, for the last days I have been ill. I would 
rather be ill there with you, as one of you, and die there, 
than at Deventer’’*. Only duty kept him “in the world”. 

For several years the brethren at Deventer and Win- 
desheim acted as if they were all members of one house. 
Thus, when in 1392 it was thought expedient to erect 
another monastery, the men at Deventer again sent the 
required funds. John Brinckerinck was still a member 
of their house at that time. His skill as carpenter was 
well known among the brethren, for in the previous year 
he had helped to build the new brethren-house. Now he 
was equally ready to exert himself*. John Busch pre- 
served the following letter by Radewijns to prior John 
Vos: “John Brinckerinck arrived yesterday from the 
monastery of Marienborn [Mary’s Fountain] near Arn- 
hem. And Henry Wilde and Henry Wilsem would like 
to know whether the house should have a roof of stone 
or not. John Brinckerinck says that if lack of funds 
compels us to cover it with straw, it will only last eight 
years. We have 392 florins with which to finance the 
construction, and no more than that. We can arrange 
that John Ketel, our cook, give his thousand florins to 
Marienborn and three hundred of his mother’s money. 
This money we could use to great advantage ourselves, 


138 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


but charity weighs more with us, though our means are 
small”. 

The history of the brethren-house at Deventer and the 
monastery of Windesheim, until the year 1424, may be 
compared to two streams from one source, which often 
unite, and usually flow side by side®. Shortly after the 
founding of Marienborn, came that of “New Light” near 
Hoorn by the same men, aided by two other disciples of 
Gerard Groote’. Deventer and Windesheim also had 
common interests at Eemsteyn near Dordrecht, founded 
in 1382, and protected till 1384 by Groote*®. This monas- 
tery must ‘have joined the other three about the year 
1393°. Together they formed the Congregation of Win- 
desheim in 1394 or 1395”, favored with privileges from 
both the pope and the Bishop of Utrecht”’. 

Once secure of its position, the new chapter rapidly 
extended its sway, adding new members at the average 
rate of one a year’. In 1395 or later a monastery near 
Amsterdam joined**. In 1398 Mount St. Agnes, near 
Zwolle, became a member™, followed by Frenswegen in 
Bentheim, east of Overijssel, in 1400*°; Leyderdorp, near 
Leiden, in 1403**; Briel in 1406'*; Haarlem*’, Thabor, 
in Friesland*®, and Zalt-Bommel, in Gelderland”, in 
1407. Then came the incorporation of the celebrated 
chapter of Groenendaal, in 1413, comprising seven 
monasteries, of which the monastery of Groenendaal, 
near Brussels, was the chief*. The spiritual force of 
Windesheim was sweeping across the Low Countries, 
absorbing and overpowering even the most ancient 
houses. Soon the Augustinian monasteries in many parts 
of Germany began to swell the tide. First a few single 
monasteries joined, then a whole chapter, namely that 
of Neuss, consisting of thirteen monasteries, of which 
however the one at Bethlehem near Doetinchem hesitated 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 139 


till 144177. About the same time several other monas- 
teries joined the Windesheim circle, such as Wittenburg, 
near Hildesheim’*; Ludingakerke, in Friesland**; Sion, 
in Beverwijk*®; Richenberg, near Goslar*®; Sacravallis, 
near Dalfsen, in Overijssel (which joined in 1430)”. 
Also, another monastery belonging to the chapter of 
Neuss, namely the one at Reimerswaal, in Zeeland, joined 
in 14307, 

A large number of other communities followed in due 
time. The story of their reform or their foundation is 
partly found in the “Chronicle of Windesheim” and 
partly in Acquoy’s work on Windesheim, while several 
articles which have appeared since 1880 in various his- 
torical magazines in Holland and Germany give further 
particulars. Suffice it to say here that in the year 1464 
the entire congregation counted more than 84 members 
and about the year 1500 it had more than 100”°. One 
wonders how it was possible for these two apparently 
obscure and certainly not wealthy convents of Windes- 
heim and Diepenveen to cause so great a veneration in 
the minds of contemporaries. Why did Eemsteyn, where 
the founders of Windesheim had been instructed, apply 
for admission, and why did the monks of Groenendaal 
so gladly submit to the rules of the Windesheim Congre- 
gation? Why did the instructed absorb the instructors ? 

Now the most striking fact about the history of the 
“New Devotion” is the way in which from humble, poor 
beginnings mighty forces developed. Not brain-power 
or money only caused the movement from Deventer and 
Windesheim to become a world-force in religion and 
education. Nor did the privileges given to Groote’s 
followers by bishops and popes have so very much to 
do with their rapid growth. There were other orders 
and congregations highly favored by the Church, many 


140 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of which were swiftly approaching collapse or utter ruin. 
No, the protection of the Church, though helpful to some 
extent, was not responsible for the power of Windesheim. 
When its missionaries journeyed from city to city they 
carried no papal bulls with them, and they seldom spoke 
of their privileges. Their mission was to waken a new 
religious ardor and personal faith, a faith accompanied 
with “‘good works’. 

One of the most interesting examples of this monastic 
reform is that introduced at Frenswegen in Bentheim, 
near the Dutch frontier. This monastery had been 
founded by Henry Crul and Everard of Eza, assisted by | 
the count of Bentheim®. Everard of Eza was a learned 
scholar. When the fame of Groote’s preaching had 
attracted his attention, he had almost immediately left 
for Deventer to hear the new preacher. With the in- 
tention of catching Groote in some lapse, he posted him- 
self out of sight and listened, expecting to come forward 
and confute him. But instead of silencing Groote, who 
had not without reason been considered one of the 
brightest stars at Paris, he was completely won by the 
master’s spirit and powerful arguments. Not long there- 
after Groote passed away, and now Everard wanted to 
join the brethren at Deventer; but at that time these 
brethren were attacked by many enemies, and Everard 
was considered one of them. When he opened the door 
of the vicarage the brethren ran away into their rooms 
for fear. Only after some lengthy deliberations he was 
finally accepted as a member. It was he who warned 
Radewijns and his followers against the folly of neglect- 
ing their bodily needs, and persuaded them to take 
physical exercises in the open air. Thus he was useful 
to them in his own way. But soon he left Deventer for 
Almelo, where he invited some priests and clerics to live 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 141 


the common life with him. Finally he decided to found 
a monastery for them, which led to the erection of 
Frenswegen®™. But what happened? The men who had 
so hopefully started upon their new life needed the guid- 
ing hand of a monk from the Yssel country. They were 
reduced to the direst poverty; and when a pestilence 
came, despair seized upon the remaining few. Windes- 
heim heard of it, and ordered Eemsteyn to send one. of 
their inmates*’. In 1400 Frenswegen was incorporated 
into the Windesheim Congregation. Now for a time all 
went well, but soon want once more troubled the small 
community, and the men seemed unable to go on. Finally 
they lost their new rector and for the second time turned 
to Windesheim for aid. This time the brethren sent one 
of their own men, named Henry Loeder, who had spent 
eleven years with them. For twenty-one years (1415- 
1436) Loeder was prior at Frenswegen, raising this 
monastery to a position of prominence in Northwestern 
Germany, for he carried to Frenswegen the ideals of 
John Vos, the practical mysticism of Groote, and the 
enthusiasm he had himself absorbed in the Yssel country 
during his long stay. Poverty and manual labor did not 
seem a hardship any more to the monks at Frenswegen. 
They worked, read, and loved each other as brothers till 
the glory of their mutual loves shed its radiant. beams 
across Westphalia, Saxony, Friesland, and the Rhine 
provinces. Sixteen missionaries were sent out to various 
monasteries, of whom twelve became priors of as many 
houses. From far and near people came to seek admission 
at Frenswegen, and more than one hundred men were 
invested during Loeder’s priorate. He himself was wont 
to travel from community to community, reviving relaxed 
discipline and stimulating despondent or negligent hearts 
into new activity. He was rightly called the Apostle of 
the Westphalians, Saxons, and Frisians*®*. 


142 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Another missionary sent from Windesheim was John 
Busch, author of the ‘“‘Chronicon Windeshemense’’, in 
whose life it is evident how the Christian Renaissance 
spread from Windesheim. Born at Zwolle in 1399%, he 
was for several years a pupil and later an assistant of 
John Cele, the famous teacher®**. Busch was a brilliant 
student, wherefore his parents wanted him to go to 
Erfurt. “No”, said he, “I wish to do some work for 
God — to reform monasteries’. Gerard Calcar, rector 
of the brethren-house at Zwolle, accordingly sent him to 
Windesheim, where he was invested in 1419**. Here he 
labored hard to master his lower self. For a time the 
enemy seemed too strong for him, till one day (the:21st 
of January, 1421) he thought he heard Jesus say to him: 
“Now thou art mine, and I am thine’. “From that day”, 
says Busch, ‘my enemy could trouble me no more’’*’. In 
1424 he was sent as missionary to the monastery of 
Bodingen**; in January, 1429, to Ludingakerke, in 
Friesland ; in August of the same year to Sion, at Bever- 
wijk*. From 1431-1434 he lived at Bronopia, near 
Kampen*, whence he went to Windesheim once more. - 
In 1436, or 1437, he was sent to the monastery of Wit- 
tenburg, situated about ten miles west of Hildesheim*’; 
in 1439 he went to Siilte, near Hildesheim, where in 
1440 he became prior**. Here he labored with consider- 
able success till, in 1447, he was called to the celebrated 
monastery of Neuwerk near Halle**, where he resided 
till 1454*°. 

This monastery of Neuwerk was one of the richest in 
all German lands. Its domains extended over an area of 
eleven square miles, with a population of twenty thousand 
inhabitants. When Busch first arrived upon the scene, 
he found the monks living dissolute lives, having lost 
all sense of propriety*®. These monks certainly had not 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 143 


left the outside world in order to serve God more per- 
fectly! They were the kind of persons who deserved 
the lash of derisive scorn applied by men like Erasmus. 
Busch was outspoken in condemnation. He was not 
satisfied with mere criticism, either. To the much needed 
negative criticism he added constructive suggestions and 
ideals. John Busch told those monks what Groote had 
said to the monks of his day. One feels while perusing 
the account left by Busch himself that he did not possess 
that warmth and freshness of newly-born religious ardor 
so characteristic of the founders of Windesheim; but he 
was sincere, and steadfast. He loathed wantonness, self- 
ishness, pride, and indolence. The ideals of Groote’s 
earliest disciples he carried with him wherever he went, 
and usually he succeeded in his task. That he had to 
meet with much opposition cannot be doubted, for men 
are not prone to exchange a life of ease and luxury for 
one of self-abnegation. Busch made enemies everywhere, 
just as Groote had done before him, and every other 
earnest reformer does. But he persevered, and won. 
Pope Nicholas V heard of his work, and sent Cardinal 
Cusa to Magdeburg in 1451, instructed to appoint Busch 
to supervise the reform of all the monasteries of the 
Augustinian Canons Regular in Saxony, Meissen, and 
Thuringia*’. 

Cusa at once ordained that the monastery of Neuwerk 
should be the head of a number of other monasteries, 
which together were to be called the Chapter of Neuwerk. 
This chapter was then to join the Chapter of Windes- 
heim, as had been the case with Groenendaal, near 
Brussels, and Neuss, on the Rhine**. Consequently Busch 
was sent to Windesheim to obtain the required per- 
mission. But when the men at Windesheim considered 
the enormous estates possessed by Neuwerk, and con- 


144 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


trasted the luxurious living of its wealthy inmates with 
their own spare living, they felt that such monasteries 
as Neuwerk were not fit places for servants of Christ. 
Their own lives, though not marred by excessive ascet- 
icism, embodied the ideals of their predecessors. They told 
Busch all this. For wealth and fame they did not care, 
they said; no matter what the pope would think, or 
Cardinal Cusa. Only monasteries could join their con- 
gregation whose inmates were willing to cast aside the 
idols of material advancement. Thus Neuwerk had to 
remain outside the Windesheim circle, but so great was 
the moral and spiritual influence of Windesheim that 
this rich and powerful chapter of Neuwerk gave up its 
own ancient rules and accepted those of the Windesheim 
Congregation*®. 

In 1454 Busch resigned his position at Neuwerk”’; in 
1455 we find him in the monastery of Wittenburg, near 
Hildesheim. From this centre he reformed four monas- 
teries*’. Then he went to Windesheim once more*’; from 
Windesheim to Diepenveen (1456)°*; and thence to 
Bronopia, near Kampen**. Not long thereafter Germany 
called him back. He accepted the call and went to the 
monastery of Siilte, near Hildesheim, where he spent 
twenty years (1459-1479), and reformed twenty mon- 
asteries”®. 

Windesheim was transforming not only the Augustin- 
ian Canons Regular, however, for we read of the reform 
of Benedictine monasteries conducted by the missionaries 
of Windesheim®*®, and of the reform of Cistercian®’ and 
Premonstratensian monasteries’. From Windesheim the 
movement spread to other congregations, such as that 
of Bursfeld, which was Benedictine, for John Dederoth, 
usually called John von Minden, abbot at Clus near 
Gandersheim, in the diocese of Hildesheim, had become 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 145 


acquainted with John Vos, the prior of Windesheim, at 
the Council of Constance. Inspired by the religious ardor 
of Vos, Von Minden sought with the help of prior Rem- 
bert of Wittenburg to reform his own monastery. He 
continued his work at Bursfeld, where he became abbot 
in 1433. Thus the new devotion of the Augustinian 
Canons Regular passed to the Benedictine order’?. 

Much worthy reform was also accomplished by the 
monastery of Boddiken in Westphalia (“Kreis” of 
Buren), which like Frenswegen and Bursfeld also became 
a great centre of renewed religious life®°, but these ex- 
amples must suffice here. Boddiken, as a member of the 
Windesheim Congregation, shone merely as the reflex 
of the greater light, and the labors of its monks resem- 
bled those of their friends at Frenswegen to so great an 
extent that they need not be recounted. 

The work of the sisters of Diepenveen was more than 
a reflection of that of Windesheim. This convent was 
founded by the Sisters of the Common Life of Deven- 
ter. It was ‘Deventer and not Windesheim which gave 
Diepenveen its best thoughts and its best leaders. From 
Diepenveen convents were founded and reorganized, as 
monasteries were from Windesheim. To its missionaries, 
therefore, our attention will now turn. 


II 


The convent of Diepenveen, founded as it had been 
by the Sisters of the Common Life, always kept in close 
touch with the sister-houses. Together with the ‘House 
of Master Gerard” at Deventer, it continually strove to 
improve conditions in the existing houses, and to found 
new ones. With the message of  self-renunciation, 
preached by Groote’s disciples, fresh upon their minds 


146 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


and hearts, the leaders at Diepenveen always sent out 
their most devout sisters as missionaries, for well they 
knew that these might never return”. 

One of these missionaries was Fije van Reeden, who 
had first spent some time in the “House of Master 
Gerard”, from where she had been transferred to Diepen- 
veen by Brinckerinck. Before she had lived there long 
enough to be invested, her convent was asked to found 
a new house of the Sisters of the Common Life at 
Xanten on the Rhine. Fije was chosen as the person 
best fitted for this task. As matron of the new institu- 
tion she performed her duties so well that she won the 
respect of all the sisters and of their friends outside the 
house, and she was so successful that Brinckerinck called 
her the Apostle of Cleves. Xanten was located in the 
_duchy of Cleves. 

But the activities of the Brethren and Sisters of the 
Common Life were watched by many clerics with feel- 
ings of unmistakable hostility. Groote had been persecut- 
ed by them, Zerbolt had been impelled to write his 
“Treatise on the Common Life’, and Brinckerinck had 
often found it necessary to defend the brethren and 
sisters at Deventer®. At Xanten some clerics bitterly 
attacked the Sisters of the Common Life as heretics. 
Here no great leaders of the “New Devotion” were 
found, and Fije van Reeden accordingly had to appear 
before the inquisitors at Cologne. The poor woman was 
frightened beyond measure. She tried to persuade a 
pious cleric to accompany her to Cologne, but she 
appealed in vain. No one was found who dared to meet 
the inquisitors in her company. She therefore appeared 
all alone before the papal inquisitors, many of whom, 
filled with “holy anger” against the Brethren and Sisters 
of the Common Life, for reasons not difficult to divine, 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 147 


maligned and slandered her, saying that she deserved 
the stake. But in spite of all their efforts they failed to 
convict her of heresy. Then they tried another plan: 
they accused her of immorality, but the charges brought 
against her were not proved, and the end of the whole 
matter was that she went home vindicated. In 1429 she 
died at Xanten”. 

There were also some houses of the Sisters of the 
Common Life which had been founded by Diepenveen 
and which at a later date were changed into convents. 
As examples might be named the house at Tienen, in 
Brabant, and that of St. Truyen, near Tienen®*. Then 
there were several convents founded or reformed by the 
sisters of Diepenveen — probably fourteen or fifteen in 
all’. The story of one of these reforms is interesting 
and instructive enough to be related here. It is that of 
the Benedictine convent of Hilwartshausen on the Weser, 
between Bursfeld and Minden. 

Tradition told that in the days of Charlemagne a pious 
hermit, named Hilwert, lived in a large forest near the 
place where the Fulda and Werre join. Here the son 
of a king was killed one day by a wild beast, and shortly 
afterwards his sister erected a convent on the spot where 
he had been killed. It was named Hilwartshausen, or 
Hilwert’s house, after Hilwert, the hermit. At first only 
kings’ daughters lived here, later on daughters of dukes 
and counts were accepted; still later, those of rich nobles 
were taken in., As time went on discipline relaxed. The 
nuns had broken all the rules of obedience and restraint, 
went out hunting and gambling, and sometimes danced 
all night with monks from neighboring monasteries. At 
last the scandal reached the ears of their parents and 
nearest relatives, who with the aid of dukes, counts, and 
priors endeavored to enforce discipline. For forty years 


148 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


no advance was made. Finally the nuns were compelled 
to dress in the white garments of the Augustinian order. 
But what happened? The women ran about the house, 
frantically exclaiming: “We can not distinguish one 
from the other any more. They have dressed us as if- 
we were to be buried’. 

A short time afterwards John Busch came to Hilwarts- 
hausen. He was accustomed to see his work crowned 
with almost immediate results. But although he remained 
here for eight days, he failed absolutely to improve con- 
ditions. What was now to be done? The countess on 
-whose estates the monastery was situated appealed to the 
prior of Boddiken, which, as has been said, was a mem- 
ber of the Windesheim Congregation. He appointed 
a pious nun from Fritzlar as prioress, while two other 
sisters from the same convent were sent to assist her. 
It soon appeared that he had not made the right choice. 
The new sisters found it impossible to remain there long. 
When they left, the inmates of the convent_joyfully ran 
to the windows, crying: “Thank God that we got rid 
of those devils’! 

The prior of Boddiken now decided to try a safer 
scheme. He went to Windesheim to ask for two or three 
sisters from Diepenveen. His request was granted only 
when he promised that the persons entrusted to him were 
to be returned “without injury either to body or soul”. 
Three sisters were sent, named Stijne des Grooten, 
Dayken Dyerkens, and Aleid ter Maat. They arrived at 
Hilwartshausen about the year 1460. As soon as the 
nuns were aware of their arrival they screamed: “The 
devils have come”. They made such a noise that it was 
not thought safe to let the reformers enter the building. 
Only the prioress came to meet them. She led Stijne des 
Grooten, the leader of the little party, through the build- 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 149 


ing, but could not prevent the sisters from making all 
‘sorts of hostile grimaces. One of the nuns, in seeing 
them approaching, threw herself upon the floor and 
sought to indicate her feelings of disapproval by gro- 
tesque movements of her limbs. This astonished Stijne 
not a little, but she was unaware of the meaning of the 
strange spectacle. “What ails this sister’? she asked the 
prioress in surprise. The latter, not knowing what to 
say, answered with a forced laugh, whereupon the new- 
comer, believing the other sister to be troubled by some 
physical disease, said in a very soft and kind voice to 
the prioress: “Dear mother, give her some wine to drink; 
perhaps she will improve then”. Thus in her innocence 
and tenderness of heart she softened the animosity of 
one of her enemies. A short time afterwards Stijne was 
appointed sub-prioress. With the greatest circumspection 
she went to work. First one should try kindness, she 
reasoned, later, severity. Besides, she knew what it was 
to love one’s neighbors as dearly as oneself; Groote, 
Radewijns, and Thomas a4 Kempis had said that one 
should even strive to be kinder to them than to one’s 
own nature. Stijne had often meditated upon these 
teachings at Deventer and Diepenveen — now the time 
had come for her to practise them. Gradually she won 
the love and respect of the sisters, and they would come 
to her for help rather than go to their own prioress. 
Especially the younger ones soon learned to love her as 
a mother or a dear friend, though still she insisted that 
they all should perform their proper duties with alacrity. 
When the hour had come for spinning, she would say: 
“Come, dear children, let us now do a little spinning. 
Now you know that we are not allowed to talk, but we 
may laugh’. Then the sisters would group themselves 
about her and begin working in silence. All of a sudden 


150 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Stijne would start to smile. The younger sisters, en- 
couraged by her example, would all respond with hearty 
laughs, “‘so that for a long period a loud noise was heard 
in the room, though none of them spoke a word”. Thus. 
she gradually taught them that manual labor and even 
enforced silence did not necessarily imply hardship or 
misery. 

The other two sisters from Diepenveen contributed 
their share to the reform of Hilwartshausen. Dayken 
Dyerkens practised each day this well-known maxim of 
Groote’s disciples: ‘Be harsh to yourself and kind to 
others’. Whenever injustice had been done to her or an 
act of unkindness, she always sought to repay it with 
some form of what one might call true Christian service. 
How much those little deeds of love must have cost her 
can only be felt by those who have also gone through 
such experiences. In a very short time she bad broken 
down all barriers of resistance. And her success must 
appear the more remarkable because she combined the 
strictest discipline with her unselfish love. One evening 
she had left the younger sisters alone for a few moments. 
Now the time had come, they thought, to have a little 
fun. Accordingly they began to dance, for the moment 
completely oblivious to the newly introduced monastic 
reform. But woe to them, when Dayken came back! 
There was no end to the penances, and never again did 
they venture to dance when Dayken was out of sight. 

The most lovable of the three reformers from Diepen- 
veen was Aleid ter Maat, who was assigned a humbler 
post than the other two sisters. All day long she was 
busy in the kitchen, but in the evening she would visit 
the sick, or else some of the sisters would come and spend 
a few sweet moments of confidential talk with her. 
There was no harshness about Aleid. To her they could 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 151 


freely open their hearts, and confess their secret wishes 
and their sorrows. She reminds us of John Ketel, the 
pious cook at Deventer, and of Florentius Radewijns. 
“One suspects”, says Dr. Kuhler of Amsterdam, “that 
it was largely due to her lovable character that the 
monastic reform attempted by the sisters of Diepenveen 
was so complete a success, though the sources are silent 
on this point’’®*. 

Several uneventful years passed before it was found 
expedient to let the three sisters return to Diepenveen. 
Not that they had forgotten their “earthly paradise’, as 
they called it. Far from it. Often Dayken Dyerkens 
would sigh: “Oh, that. I might once more see the gates 
of Diepenveen opened to me, and that I might enter 
there — how happy I would be”! Finally, after the lapse 
of six years, her wish was granted. Great was the joy 
of the three reformers, but equally great the sorrow of 
the nuns they were to leave. For a good while the new 
religious fervor at Hilwartshausen was a living force — 
just as long as the remembrance of the kind words and 
deeds of the departed sisters remained impressed on the 
minds of the nuns. But gradually these impressions were 
weakened, and supplanted by entirely different ones. 
Discipline relaxed once more®’. The nuns of Hilwarts- 
hausen were not in touch with that great spiritual force 
which Groote’s disciples in the Yssel country successfully 
maintained. Far away from the Yssel valley, no matter 
how brightly the new fires of devotion had at first 
lighted up the whole atmosphere in brethren-house or 
monastery, the principles of the “New Devotion” were 
less effectually assimilated. Well might the more pious 
nuns at Hilwartshausen exclaim: “If only we had kept 
those sisters from Diepenveen with us, we would have 
kept up our first love’®. 


152 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


III 


The monasteries of Windesheim and Diepenveen have 
often been called the “model convents” of the fifteenth 
century. The reforms introduced by them were the 
chief cause which for a time at least halted the downfall 
of monasticism in north central Europe. To Windes- 
heim and Diepenveen the pious abbots, priors, bishops, 
and princes looked for help, when indolence, greed, and 
vice threatened to ruin the lives of the monks and nuns. 
Many an ambitious prior took a journey to the Yssel 
valley to watch those men and women who so steadfastly 
clung to Groote’s ideals of piety, and as a rule they 
returned with one or more assistants, filled with new 
hope. Thus Windesheim and Diepenveen helped to re- 
form several hundred monasteries in the Low Countries, 
Germany, and France. Nearly one hundred of these 
actually joined the far-famed Congregation of Windes- 
heim, humbly obeying the instructions of the prior 
superior, and devoutly following the Windesheim rules 
embodied in the constitution drawn up during the closing 
years of the fourteenth century — a very remarkable 
document. Before 1387 the founders of the new monas- 
tery had cared little about monastic life in general, or 
about the rules of the Augustinian order, but in 1394 
they decided to form a chapter and to prepare the 
foundation of a constitution. John Vos and Henry Wilde 
went to the celebrated monasteries of St. Victor and Ste. 
Genevieve at Paris to study the rules followed there, but 
instead of slavishly copying those rules, they studied 
many others, and finally drew up a constitution which 
contained elements selected with great care from those 
used: in various monasteries’. In 1395 Pope Boniface 
officially approved of their work. This encouraged the 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 153 


men of Windesheim to compose an “Ordinarius’, a 
“Kalendrium”, and a “Manuale”’. Shortly after that a 
committee was appointed to draw up the Windesheim 
missales, evangelaria, epistolaria, lectionaria, capitularia, 
and collectaria, all agreeing to a letter. The brethren 
must have had great will-power, for nothing so complete 
had ever been attempted before”. 

The constitution they adopted prescribed the way they 
and their successors were henceforth to spend their time. 
Their lives were not very different from those of the 
Brethren of the Common Life, while the theological 
views they entertained coincided absolutely with those of 
their friends at Deventer, at least during the life of 
Florentius Radewijns. But as time went on monastic 
conditions differentiated them from their brethren, The 
men at Windesheim had left the “world” behind them 
in order to explore their inner selves in a life of com- 
parative solitude, and this silence and meditation did not 
fail to react upon their minds. Jealously the monks at 
Windesheim, and in all of the monasteries belonging to 
their chapter, clung to their old ideals. They began with 
Groote’s enthusiasm fresh upon their responsive hearts 
and minds; their early acts clearly personified that living 
faith which abounds in “good works”, as James had 
commanded in his Epistle. Windesheim passed through 
a golden age, a silver age, and a period of decline’’. By 
the opening years of the sixteenth century one would 
look in vain for great theologians and great scholars at 
Windesheim. | 

After studying the works of Groote, Radewijns, 
Mande, and Peters. (the last two were the best writers 
Windesheim produced), one can picture the sort of life 
the men at Windesheim led. They loved to read the Bible 
and the Fathers, and they devoted much of their time to 


154 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


manual labor of some sort. Their clothes and meals were 
quite simple. Certainly there was much real piety to be 
found at Windesheim. Not only were the “sacred writ- 
ings” copied there with zest’, but the monks conscien- 
tiously strove to follow in the foot-steps of Christ. They 
believed in the blessings of manual labor and of pover- | 
ty’*; and their meals, taken but twice a day, were plain, 
though wholesome and fairly plentiful’’. Most of the 
monks had at one time been members of the Brethren of | 
the Common Life, and the clothes they wore differed 
but little from those used by their friends at Deventer”. 
They too were ascetics to a certain extent. Not that they 
starved or mutilated their bodies’, but they distrusted 
sensuous pleasures as their enemy, and to be free from 
all external things was their ideal, perhaps also their 
secret motive in “fleeing the world’. Some of the monks 
even thought it wrong to have a hearty talk with their 
own mothers”. 

One can easily imagine that it was not the braver, the 
more active sort of men that left the brethren-house for 
the monastery. There were some great minds among the 
early inhabitants at Windesheim, and some splendid men 
like John Vos of Heusden, but many were timorous”, 
or carried away by excessive humility and self-abase- 
ment®®, 

There was much about the lives of the monks at Win- 
desheim that deserves respect. It seems that the loving 
heart of Radewijns had inspired the men who founded 
the new monastery under his supervision, — inspired 
them to emulate his numerous deeds of charity. Seldom 
if ever did the poor ask Windesheim in vain for material 
assistance. Many a lonely wanderer, after having crossed 
the weird outskirts of the Veluwe or the vast heaths of 
Overijssel, would hopefully knock at the gate of Windes- 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 155 


heim to ask refuge for the night. Windesheim became 
famous for its charity*. 

And Windesheim became famous also as a centre of 
literature and art. The monks belonging to this congre- 
gation often spoke about the inner life, but that did not 
always signify little regard for learning. There were 
many scholars in the monasteries*’, and splendid libra- 
ries**. Though at first the monks at Windesheim copied 
books chiefly for their own use**, they began about the 
year 1500 to edit works for export to foreign countries*’. 

One of the most remarkable achievements Windesheim 
could boast of was the correction of the Vulgate. The 
monks had made up their minds that the Latin Bibles 
then in use differed too much from each other to be all 
correct. Consequently they wanted to get a version which 
should form the standard for all further copies. They 
had one sent from Paris, one from the monastery of 
Bethlehem near Doetinchem, and one from’ the monastery 
of St. Jansdal near Harderwijk. For several years they 
compared and copied until finally their standard-copy 
was completed*®. So well did they perform their task 
that their copy, according to Hirsche and other author- 
ities, became the basis for the Vulgate adopted officially 
by the Church at the close of the fifteenth century*’. In 
a similar way they brought out editions of the Fathers**. 

Furthermore, the Windesheim circle not only produced 
a great mass of manuscripts, but illuminated them 
beautifully*®. Many capable artists were developed in 
these monasteries, both sculptors”, and painters. Thus 
the monastery of Rooklooster in Brabant produced > 
Hugo van der Goes, one of the greatest painters North 
of the Alps during the second half of the fifteenth 
century”. 

Dr. Acquoy says that if one takes a general view of 


156 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the Windesheim group, he must come to the conclusion 
that the remarkable moderation displayed by the monks 
and nuns of this chapter in all their ways of living, and 
of expressing their thoughts, is highly commendable and 
truly amazing. The chapter of Windesheim, he con- 
tinues, was indeed one of the greatest and perhaps the 
most influential in the whole history of Western monas- 
ticism®*. Several hundred monasteries had for a time 
at least basked in the gentle warmth of the newly 
awakened religious life, that was proceeding in all direc- 
tions from Windesheim and Diepenveen. The mission- 
aries from the Yssel valley had journeyed from place to 
place, carrying with them the best thoughts of Gerard 
Groote, the founder, and of Radewijns and Zerbolt, the 
two first leaders of the Brethren of the Common Life. 
No new theories had been expounded by them, nor had 
they at any time hinted at a need of revolutionary 
changes in church, home, or monastery. A mild form of 
asceticism clung to the followers of Groote at Deventer 
and Windesheim until the opening years of the sixteenth 
century. Windesheim broke with no hallowed traditions ; 
it made much of Mary, the mother of Christ, and believed 
in indulgences and in the invocation of saints®. 

But the Windesheim Congregation, in pointing out 
the uselessness of mere form, and in stressing the need 
of a personal, living faith, helped unconsciously to pre- 
pare the way for a great religious upheaval. For a time 
it tended to stay the onward march of demoralization 
among the regular and secular, clergy. Its missionaries 
scattered the works of Groote, Radewijns, Zerbolt, 
Peters, and Thomas a Kempis across the Continent, so 
that even to-day one finds copies of them in libraries and 
book-stores in most of the larger European cities. Thus 
the principles of the “New Devotion” became the 


THE CONGREGATION OF WINDESHEIM 157 


spiritual food of many thousands of devout men and 
‘women beyond the Low Countries, in Germany, France, 
and Spain, and would later, as we shall see, be crystallized 
in the lives of great reformers, like Luther, Calvin, 
Zwingli, and Loyola. 


CHAPEERSV 
THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 


For more than three centuries a multitude of writers 
have written books and articles on the authorship of the 
“Tmitation of Christ”. So vast is the amount of printed 
material devoted to this subject that no human being will 
ever be able to read it all. In the fifteenth century the 
_“Tmitation” appeared in print at Augsburg, Cologne, 
Nuremberg, Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and Venice, ascribed 
respectively to St. Bernard, Gerson, and Thomas a Kem- 
pis. Now that the dispute is about to be terminated, 
thanks to the discovery of a number of manuscripts at 
Lubeck, which once belonged to the Sisters of the Com- 
mon Life in that city, we are able to manipulate prop- 
erly the material at hand, and note how essential it is to 
study the lives and writings of Groote, Radewijns, 
Zerbolt, and their followers, before one can understand 
how the “Imitation of Christ’? was composed and how 
it became the Gospel of the “New Devotion’, or 
Christian Renaissance. 


I 


“After the Gospel, the ‘Imitation’ undoubtedly is the 
book that reflects with the greatest perfection the light 
which Jesus Christ brought us down from heaven. It 
eminently contains the Christian philosophy........... 
Nowhere else do we find the same doctrine inculcated 

158 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 159 


with a more persuasive eloquence and simplicity than in 
the unpretending little volume that all of us have a 
hundred times perused’. Thus reads the verdict of a 
notable Catholic author in America*. His view is sup- 
ported by that of thousands upon thousands of other 
writers in all countries, and belonging to every religious 
denomination. For rich and poor, high and low, learned 
and simple — all who for the time being are weary of 
external, formal observances, or dissatisfied with the dry 
bones of dogma held out to them by many preachers 
may find the advice and instruction they need in turning 
over even the first few leaves of the “Imitation of 
Christ’. Nobody knows through how many thousands 
of editions the little book has passed since the close of 
the fifteenth century, or into just how many languages 
and dialects it has been translated’. Not a single year 
passes without adding a score of new editions to the 
many already existing. Together with the Bible it has 
found its way into the remotest regions, eagerly devoured 
by Christian and pagan, by civilized and barbarian. Who 
knows how many millions of stubborn hearts it has 
softened, how many aches it has healed, how much hatred 
it has melted as the sun melts the snow in spring? 

In analyzing the teachings of the ‘Imitation’, one is 
reminded immediately of Groote’s theological and socio- 
logical views, which are repeated in the works of Rade- 
wijns, Zerbolt, and Peters. The great underlying thought 
of the “Imitation”, as Hirsche says’, is the fact that man 
is a pilgrim here, an exile. According to Groote and his 
disciples, man is a sort of prisoner on earth, his prison, 
the flesh, which besets him on every turn with obstacles, 
blocking his way back home to the happy state before 
the fall. Man has to cleanse his blood from poison, his 
mind from sin, his heart from vice. First vice must be 


160 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


extinguished, ere virtue and love can find room in the 
human heart. 

The ‘Imitation’? therefore distinctly teaches the de- 
pravity of human nature: “O how great is human frailty, 
which is always prone to evil. There is no man that is 
altogether free from temptations whilst he liveth on 
earth: for in ourselves is the root thereof, being born 
with inclination to evil. For through Adam the first 
man, Nature being fallen and corrupted by sin, the 
penalty of this stain hath descended upon all mankind’. 
It is man’s duty to extirpate sin, to cleanse his blood from 
poison, his heart and mind from vice: “ ‘Hope in the 
Lord, and do good’, saith the Prophet, ‘and inhabit the 
land, and thou shalt be fed in the riches thereof’”. A 
great many pages are devoted to the problem of fighting 
various sins: Radewijns, it should be remembered, had 
made excerpts from Cassianus about the principal sins 
and their remedies; Zerbolt had copied after Radewijns’ 
“rapiarium”, when drawing up his “Spiritual Ascens- 
ions’; in the “Imitation” also the reader is exhorted to 
study his daily shortcomings. He is urged to “resist the 
blood’, and to conquer his lower self: “This ought to be 
our daily endeavour, to conquer ourselves. Who hath a 
greater combat than he that laboureth to overcome him- 
self? Thou must be lord and master of thine own 
actions, and not be a slave or a hireling. The perfect 
victory is to triumph over ourselves’’. Groote and his dis- 
ciples carefully explored the inner self. “Know thyself”, 
was one of their maxims; hence we read in the “Imita- 
tion”: “The highest and most profitable reading is the 
true knowledge and consideration of ourselves’. 

The “Imitation” urges us to fight our passions, and re- 
peatedly elaborates upon the nature and effects of temp- 
tation®. This also is in accordance with Groote’s and 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 161 


Radewijns’ writings. On several occasions Groote had 
been obliged to give counsel to those among his disciples 
who were dejected on account of their inability to get 
the better of their temptations, and all the inmates of 
Radewijns’ vicarage had considered the conquest of sin 
as man’s prime duty. They searched every day in 
religious books for practical help in their constant strug- 
gle against evil, writing down the most helpful excerpts 
they could find in their “rapiaria”. In the “Imitation” 
we meet with many of these excerpts: “O, if men be- 
stowed as much labor in the rooting out of vices, and 
planting of virtues, as they do in the moving of questions, 
neither would there so much hurt be done, nor so great 
scandal be given in the world, nor so much looseness be 
practised in religious houses (monasteries). Examine 
diligently thy conscience, and to the utmost of thy power 
purify and make it clear....... Think with displeasure 
of all thy sins in general, and more particularly bewail 
and lament thy daily transgressions”. There are many 
shortcomings singled out for a more detailed study, such 
as the love of “worldly things”, and too much familiarity 
with human beings, especially with women’. Gossip is a 
great evil, so is curiosity. The opinions of others are not 
to be given undue regard: “He enjoyeth great tranquility 
of heart that careth neither for the praises nor dispraises 
of men”. Fame, therefore, is absolutely worthless, as 
also are honors,. and material possessions. And if one 
looks for comfort from human beings, one is certain to 
be disappointed sooner or later®. Since man is a pilgrim 
and exile here on earth, he must not give himself to 
mirth; he has much more occasion for tears than for 
laughter, though dejection is not desirable®. The flesh, 
man’s greatest enemy perhaps, should be made subject 
to the mind or spirit: “The more the flesh is wasted by 


162 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


affliction, so much the more is the spirit strengthened by 
inward grace. Know for certain, that thou oughtest to 
lead a dying life. And the more any man dieth to him- 
self, so much the more doth he begin to live unto God’. 

“O, if men bestowed more labor in the rooting out. 
of vices, and planting of virtues”. The more one’s vices 
disappear, the more room there will be for new virtues; 
this is the view set forth by Radewijns (d.-1400) in 
his “Omnes inquit artes”, where he elaborates upon the 
eight principal vices, and their “remedies”. These 
“remedies” are the new virtues to be introduced into the 
mind and heart. Zerbolt (d. 1398) used the “rapiarium”’ 
of Radewijns in composing his “Reformation of the 
Faculties of the Soul” and his “Spiritual Ascensions’”’. 
The “Imitation” follows these in devoting much space 
to the “rooting out of vices, and planting of virtues”. 
Above all other virtues rank humility’” and obedience”’, 
which are the “remedies’’ against pride’*. Self-renuncia- 
tion and resignation are ranked high among virtues’’. 
The reader is taught that only through suffering*®, by 
carrying his cross with him every day, in imitation of 
Christ, can he reach the heavenly country. One must 
keep one’s eye single, one’s attention concentrated upon 
the final goal: Heaven*’. It is advisable to avoid society 
as much as possible, to devote much time to contempla- 
tion, to read the “sacred writings’ with one’s mind freed 
from temporal cares, and with devotion. Traveling is to 
be avoided as much as possible, but manual labor is 
recommended, and poverty deemed essential**. On every 
page of the “Imitation”, it will be seen, one meets with 
thoughts expressed before by Zerbolt, Radewijns, and 
Groote. 

When the mind becomes clear, and the heart pure, one 
receives the highest gift from heaven: love. Thus Groote 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 163 


had thaught his disciples. Love is more than virtue, and 
more than the mere absence of vice, wherefore the men 
and women of Deventer could find no words fit to des- 
cribe the value of love. The “Imitation” in turn makes 
much of love; in the first place, the love the creature 
owes to the Creator*®, and to Christ his savior’; in the 
second place, love for his neighbor”*, But the love and 
worship -of self is looked upon as an abomination in 
God’s sight”. 

Groote and his disciples were all mystics. Much of 
Groote’s mysticism found its way into the “Imitation” : 
“*The Kingdom of God is within you’, saith the Lord. 
Learn to despise outward things, and to give thyself to 
things inward, and thou shalt perceive the Kingdom of 
God to come in thee. Christ will come unto thee, and 
show thee his own consolation, if thou prepare for him 
a worthy mansion within thee. Let not Moses speak unto 
me, nor any one of the prophets, but rather do thou 
speak, O Lord God, Inspirer and Enlightener of all the 
prophets; for thou alone without them canst perfectly 
instruct me, but they without thee can profit nothing. 
They indeed may sound forth words, but cannot give the 
Spirit. Unless thou help me, and inwardly inform me, 
I become altogether lukewarm and ready to fall to pieces. 
He to whom all things are one, he who reduceth all things 
to one, and seeth all things in one, may enjoy a quiet 
mind, and remain peaceable in God. O God, make me 
one with thee’’?*®. As mystics, Groote’s disciples placed 
the acquisition of virtue above that of learning, as is 
indicated in passages like the following: “Be studious 
for the mortification of thy sins; for this will profit thee 
more than the knowledge of many difficult questions”. 
But the “Imitation” does not disparage the value of book- 
learning : “Yet learning is not to be blamed, nor the mere 


164 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


knowledge of any thing whatsoever to be disliked, it 
being good in itself, and ordained by God”. Empty 
phrases, mere style, and scholastic disputes, however, are 
considered worthless”. 
As for the views about God and man expressed in the 
“Imitation”, not a single statement can be found deviat- 
ing from those taught by Gerard Groote. The Brethren 
of the Common Life at Deventer built their views upon 
the teachings contained in the New Testament and the 
Fathers. Perhaps they failed to grasp the meaning of 
certain phrases in the Gospels and in the Epistles by Paul, 
Peter, and James. If they did, they only repeated the 
errors made by men like Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, 
Bernard, Bonaventura, Cassianus, and Thomas Aquinas. 
One important theological question is the salvation of 
man, and closely connected with it, the conception of 
heaven and hell, of man’s depravity, the value of faith 
and “good works”, and the nature of “grace”. That 
Groote’s disciples implicity believed in the depravity of. 
human nature has been repeatedly indicated above*’. But 
Groote had taught that man remained in touch with his 
Creator, for Groote was a mystic’®. The tie which united 
man with God, according to the “Imitation”, is the Holy 
Ghost, the Comforter, divine love, or grace**. Man has 
fallen so low that he cannot rise any more without divine 
help. But since he was created in God’s image, something 
divine remains in his sinful heart; “For the small power 
which remaineth is as it were a spark lying hid in the 
ashes’”’*. Grace can fan this spark beneath the ashes into 
a bright flame, if man wishes. This inner light will then 
purge away vice and finally make room for love, until 
the inner self is transformed into a mansion for Christ 
to inhabit. Thus human nature is sanctified, and the 
small spark of divinity augmented into a flame of pure 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 165 


love. Such was Groote’s view, and such was the view 
of those who composed the “Imitation”. 

Paul and the Church Fathers held that thieash the 
transgression of one man the whole human race fell, and 
that through the sacrifice of one man the gift of salva- 
tion was offered to every human being, so Groote based 
his belief upon this teaching. He did not come to the 
conclusion that all men were saved through Christ’s 
sacrifice, for the simple reason that the Church Fathers 
had not done so. The doctrine of universal restoration 
was very little known in Groote’s day. Hence the 
Brethren of the Common Life believed, in common with 
most Catholics and Protestants since, that only those 
souls were to be saved that accepted Christ as their 
Savior. One could be saved by becoming one of Christ’s 
followers, for which faith was the only requirement, 
though not faith as defined afterwards by Luther. 
Groote’s disciples held that there could not be such a 
thing as an empty faith, a faith without works. They 
took to heart the warning of James: “What doth it 
profit my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and 
have not works? can faith save him? Thou believest 
that there is one God, thou doest well: the devils also 
believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, 
that faith without works is dead’’**? The brethren were 
always dwelling on the following themes: prepare your- 
self for heaven; remember the Beatitudes, for every vice 
eradicated, and every newly acquired virtue, is a step 
nearer the final goal, wherefore we read in the “Imita- 
tion”: “And I [God] daily read two lessons to them 
[Mine elect], one in reproving their vices, another in 
exhorting them to the increase of all virtues’’®°. 


166 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


II 


The compiler of the ‘Imitation of Christ” was Thomas 
a Kempis, or rather, Thomas Hemerken of Kempen. 
He was born in the town of Kempen in the diocese of 
Cologne. The date of his birth is not certain. Some 
writers claim it must be placed in the year 1379 or 1380"; 
others, in the year 1380 or 1381**. His father was called 
John Hemerken, or John with the little hammer, for he 
earned his living with his hammer*, though he also 
owned a tract of land**. That both Thomas and his 
brother John a Kempis were not mere phantoms invented 
by chronicle writers, is shown by a document written at 
Kempen in the year 1402, in which the sale of their 
father’s home is attested*’. 

In 1392 the fame of Deventer’s cathedral school had 
reached the duchy of Guelders, in which Kempen was 
situated. Whether it was due to the presence of the 
Brethren of the Common Life or to the reforms initiated 
on Groote’s advice, certain it is that many parents were 
anxious to have their boys educated at Deventer. In 
Thomas’ case there was an additional reason for his 
going there. His brother John had been an inmate of 
Radewijns’ vicarage, and was now living at Windes- 
heim*®. In 1392 Thomas arrived at Deventer*’. “When 
I came to study at Deventer”, he wrote afterwards, “I 
went to Windesheim, where my brother was living. He 
told me to visit Florentius Radewijns’**. Eager to follow 
John’s advice, for John knew the vicar well, Thomas 
came to Radewijns. He was not a wealthy boy; he 
could not even pay for his board and lodging. Radewijns 
took compassion on him, and invited him to stay at his 
house**. Thus fortune smiled upon him from the first 
‘day. 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 167 


Not only did Radewijns provide him with lodging, 
but he gave him books and paid his tuition at the school 
of St. Lebwin’s. His teacher at that time was a certain 
John Boheme. One day Thomas brought him the tuition 
fee. “Who gave it to you’? the teacher asked. “Rade- 
wijns’’, was the boy’s reply. “Then take it back to your 
kind master”, said the teacher*®. It takes very little 
imagination to see how much the friendship of a man 
like Radewijns meant to the boys then attending the 
cathedral school. Thomas must have told his parents 
about it, and the other boys. His parents in turn probably 
mentioned his experiences to other parents. In this way 
even before the close of the fourteenth century the in- 
fluence of Gerard Groote was being felt in homes far 
beyond the Yssel valley. 

But the brethren-house at Deventer was too small to. 
lodge school boys. Radewijns, therefore, looked around 
for some other quarters, and sent Thomas to a certain 
devout woman, doubtless one of Groote’s disciples*’. 
How long the boy stayed with her we do not know. It 
seems that after a few years he lived with the brethren 
again, for he tells of experiences in the brethren-house: 
“All I earned”, he writes, “I gave to the community; 
the rest I needed was given by Florentius**. Here I 
learned to read and write the Holy Scriptures and books 
on moral subjects, but it was chiefly through the sweet 
conversation of the Brethren that I was inspired yet 
more strongly to despise the world**. I took pleasure in 
their godly conduct. Never before could I recollect to 
have seen such men, so devout and fervent’’**, 

What Florentius Radewijns did reminds us of Groote’s 
work among the school boys at Deventer. He also had 
often invited them to come to his house, and had given 
them work to do. Some of these boys became Brethren 


168 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of the Common Life, though at the time they visited 
Groote they were living still in private homes. Thomas 
a Kempis too was first lodged with a pious woman, as 
soon as Radewijns found a place for him. Later he was 
asked to become a real inmate of the brethren-house. 
Perhaps Thomas lived only one year with the brethren 
at Deventer, as his own remarks seem to prove*®, but 
the influence of Radewijns had been shaping his young 
mind before he re-entered the brethren-house. Later he 
wrote: “During seven years of my life [1392-1399] I 
experienced the wonderful compassions of Florentius 
Radewijns’’*®. Add to this that his own brother John 
had lived with Radewijns, Brinckerinck, and Vos in the 
first brethren-house at Deventer, and the conclusion is 
justified that when Thomas began to preach and write, 
he repeated the maxims of Groote and Radewijns, the 
two founders of the new brotherhood, the two men who 
inaugurated the “New Devotion’, or Christian Renais- 
sance*’, 

Thomas was one of the many young men sent out by 
the Brethren of the Common Life to erect or reform 
monasteries. We have already seen how John Vos of 
Heusden, Henry Mande, and Gerlach Peters carried the 
thoughts of Groote, Radewijns, and Zerbolt to the 
monastery of Windesheim. John Brinckerinck had done 
the same thing to Diepenveen. Thomas a2 Kempis was 
to follow their example at Mount St. Agnes, three miles 
north-east of Zwolle**. He probably carried some manu- 
scripts also with him from Deventer to the new monas- 
tery; certain it is that manuscripts were brought there 
from Deventer, for Thomas 4 Kempis was the person 
who preserved and edited a great many sayings of Groote 
and Radewijns, which he incorporated into his well- 
known biographies of Groote and his disciples. The 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 169 


friendship between Radewijns and Thomas must have 
been very intimate; says Thomas: “I often made ready 
his table at his request and brought from the pantry the 
things he needed’’**. Radewijns often sent him to the 
Sisters of the Common Life living in Deventer, and 
whenever Radewijns was ill Thomas had to ask them to 
pray for him®. It is not surprising that Thomas wrote 
the best biographies of Groote, Radewijns, and Zerbolt, 
the three founders of the brotherhood. The significance 
of this fact is seldom appreciated. If writers interested 
in the authorship of the “Imitation of Christ’ had 
properly reflected upon this point before they decided to 
add another work to the many hundreds already com- 
posed, and if those French, Italian, German, and English 
authors who thought they were solving the problem 
without reading any one of the works by Groote or his 
disciples had first spent a few years in the Hague, 
Utrecht, Liége, and Cologne, carefully investigating the 
mystical productions of the Brethren of the Common Life 
at Deventer, they would have dropped the matter entirely 
or concluded that the “Imitation of Christ’? must have 
proceeded from the pen of one or more of Groote’s 
followers”. 

The world has long waited for a history of the whole 
movement inaugurated by Gerard Groote, in which the 
services of each predominent personality are clearly 
pictured, their productions carefully measured, and 
properly balanced. The moment one fails to grasp the 
significance of any one of the leaders of Deventer, he 
cannot understand the others. Hence the only thing to 
be done is to study Thomas a Kempis in his spiritual 
heredity and environment. 

It must have been near the close of the year 1399 that 
Thomas a Kempis went to the monastery of Mount St. 


\ 


170 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Agnes’. The spot may have seemed sacred to him for 
the reason that Gerard Groote had visited the place in 
the summer of the 1384, pointing out to his disciples this 
site for their first brethren-house. Here the pious John 
Ummen had lived, the blind leader of the Brethren of the 
Common Life of Zwolle, and now a monastery had been 
erected on this hill of St. Agnes, or “Agnietenberg”’. 

In 1412 or 1413 Thomas a Kempis was ordained 
priest®*, and shortly after this began his career as editor, 
writer, and copyist. In 1425 he was elected sub-prior™, 
for soon the other monks had been impressed by his 
great religious fervor. Says Tolensis, who spent many 
years at Mount St. Agnes: “In the church and in the 
performances of ecclesiastical ceremonies, it is difficult 
to describe his rapt intention, and I might say inspiration. 
While he chanted the psalms, his eyes were ever raised 
towards heaven, and he appeared to be filled with a divine 
enthusiasm, captivated and carried away by the unutter- 
able sweetness of the holy psalmody: so that he never 
stood with his heels resting upon the ground; that is to 
say, as he meditated, the tips of his toes alone touched 
the floor, the rest of his body was lifted heavenwards, 
whither his soul tended with all its desires’’*. When in 
1471 he passed away, it was his name which had made 
the monastery of Mount St. Aignes celebrated above 
many ancient convents. Even the greatest among the 
«reat, like a Wessel Gansfort, had not deemed it below 
their dignity to have a few moments of conversation 
with this venerable mystic. He had written thirty-eight 
works, among which the “Soliloquy of the Soul’, the 
“Garden of Roses’, and the “Valley of Lilies” are 
excellent®®. 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 171 


Ill 


Thomas a Kempis never could have chosen a better 
time to “learn to read and write the sacred writings” 
than in the year 1398-1399. It was in the summer of 
1398 that the two institutions of Gerard Groote at 
Deventer passed through the greatest crisis that ever was 
to threaten their existence. In the brethren-house at 
Deventer the men had lived a semi-monastic life, un- 
disturbed by quarrels, feuds, and hostile attacks. Then 
came the terrible pestilence in June, taking the lives of 
nearly all the experienced members. First in the vicarage 
of Radewijns, and later in the “House of Florentius”, 
or the real brethren-house, they had for more than four- 
teen years tried to do what they believed Christ had 
commanded in the Beatitudes. They had conscientiously 
endeavored to “despise the world’, to “remain un- 
known’, to ‘‘offer themselves to God’, and to “subdue 
the flesh’. 

Let us in imagination visit Deventer. It is early in the 
month of June that the pestilence has made its appearance 
in the brethren-house. More than half of the inmates 
have the disease, while most of the others have hurriedly 
fled across the Veluwe to Amersfoort, taking many 
school boys with them. Thomas a Kempis remains at 
Deventer, where for six years he has followed in the 
footsteps of his beloved Radewijns. The pious cook in 
the brethren-house and all the older members have died. 
Heart-rending letters have been passing between Amers- 
foort and Deventer. In the brethren-house Thomas has 
found the spiritual exercises of John Ketel, the cook, 
and of Lubbert ten Bossche, besides those of the other 
dead brothers. Zerbolt has just left for Amersfoort, 
and Thomas finds himself practically the sole possessor 


172 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE - 


of the jealously guarded treasures in the library*’. Most 
precious to him seem the “devout exercises” of Groote 
and Radewijns, of which a few excerpts are given below: 


“Likewise after the example of Bernard, utter no 
word by which thou mayest seem to be very religious, 
or endowed with knowledge. Resolve to avoid and 
abhor all public disputations which are but wranglings 
for success in argument, or the appearance thereof 
(such as the disputations of graduates in Theology at 


Paris), and take no part therein......... So also I 
will never argue with anyone in private unless it is | 
certain that some good end shall follow......... My 


first resolution is to desire no further preferment..... 
According to the rule of the primitive church thou 
canst not hold several benefices......... Let there be 
a daily fast which doth consist in not wholly satisfying 
the Sappetites.-.. 25.5 All philosophers advise this, 
specially Seneca and Aristotle....... Likewise Gerard 
said a man ought not to be disturbed about any affair 
of this world...... Before all things study specially to 
be humble inwardly. The knowledge of all knowledge 
is for a man to know that he knoweth nothing. The 
more a man is assured that he is far from perfection, 
the nearer he is thereto. The beginning of vainglory 
is to be pleasing to oneself......... With whatsoever 
thoughts a man doth fall asleep, with such doth he 
awaken; at these times it is well to pray or read some 
psalms. 

“Before all things know thy vices and thy passions. 
Be watchful against temptation and the promptings of 
thy passions. .:2..0<: Reply humbly to them that ask 
of thee. Avoid women, and beware of looking upon 
them. It is an ill example to the world to keep no guard 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 173 


Over thet eyes oe .-.-31. Thou oughtest not to speak 
evil of any, unless it can profit thee or him......... 
I think that the thoughts and promptings which come 
into our hearts are not under our control, but it is in 
our power to plant good in the heart by reading, pray- 
er, and meditation until these promptings to what is 
unlawful are overcome and yield, and by the grace of 
ibs IG" Ceasean ac tiass We ought to raise our heart to” 
heaven without ceasing, and to turn again and again 
to themEolysSctipturessa. Yo. By too great haste 
devotion is lost. Therefore avoid mere repetitions, and 
do all things with attention and thought, not from 
habit only......... Worldly knowledge is very allur- 
ing; therefore let a man beware that he be not too 
much attracted thereto; let him earnestly desire to pass 
over to God by means of such knowledge, and not be 
satisfied therewith as an end in itself......... A man 
ought to direct all his exercises and studies to the 
conquest of his passions and weaknesses, for otherwise 
he doth profit little thereby. In the hours of common 
labor stand ever on thy guard, and be careful of much 
speaking ss. oe Never be idle, but be busied with 
some occupation”. 


Thomas also copied the letter sent by Amilius van 
Buren to the brethren at Amersfoort, where Radewijns 
was then staying. In this letter Amilius told the absent 
rector about the death of Lubbert ten Bossche, or Lubbert 
Berner, as Thomas calls him. Thomas adds that Van 
Buren was sitting beside the dying man: “He [Amilius] 
carefully kept account of all the edifying words which he 
heard fall from his lips; and after Lubbert’s death he 
faithfully made record of them, writing them in order in 
aletter 3/5. and this letter I have determined to insert 


174 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


here”. Not satisfied with that, Thomas also copied the 
letter composed by Lubbert shortly before his death, to- 
gether with the answer from Radewijns to the brethren 
at Deventer. The story of Lubbert’s decease is very im- 
pressive: “And he answered me, as it were in great 
amazement: ‘Wonderful, wonderful, marvelous, marvel- 
ous, yea great and marvelous are the things which I saw 
when I sat up’. And then he added: ‘Call the brethren, 
call the brethren’; and when I called them, immediately 
he breathed his last”. What is still more remarkable, 
Thomas copied excerpts from the “devout exercises” of 
this pious brother. He began with the following sentence : 
“Thy task shall be to labor to uproot thy vices and to 
gain virtue’. 

This is not all. Thomas was the trusted friend of 
Amilius van Buren, rector of the brethren at Deventer 
during Radewijns’ absence in the summer of the year 
1398. Amilius had watched by the bed-side of the dying 
Lubbert ten Bossche. From his mouth Thomas “received 
many of those good things concerning the virtues of the 
brethren”, which he wrote down in his “Lives of Gerard 
Groote, Florentius Radewijns, and their Disciples”. 
Who knows how much more Thomas might have told us, 
and how many more brief sayings he might have preserv- 
ed which now are lost? He shows how well he’ was 
acquainted with the kind cook: “He made the kitchen a 
house of prayer, for he knew that God is everywhere... . 
He passed no time. unfruitfully, nor for a moment 
neglected his spiritual exercises’. Thomas copied the 
cook’s “devout exercises’, most likely from the original 
itself, so that we owe to his busy hand the preservation 
of this literary production, together with those of Groote, 
Radewijns, Ten Bossche, and some other men. 

Early in 1398 Thomas a Kempis was living in the 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 175 


old vicarage of Radewijns, and not in the new brethren- 
house, which was called “House of Florentius”. ‘At 
that time’, writes Thomas, “there was no small number 
of clerks living in the several houses under the rule and 
discipline of that most devout Father, and following the 
holy commandments of their Lord, his counsels and 
precepts, and also at set times toiling at the work of copy- 
ing books for the schools......... At this time by the 
aid and counsel of Florentius I also took up my abode in 
this house and continued in the community for about one 
year, having Arnold as my companion. Here indeed I 
learned to write, to read the Holy Scriptures and books 
on moral subjects, and to hear devout discourses....... 
All I was then able to earn I gave for the expenses of 
the community......... As he [Arnold] sat with the 
boys in school he noted not their childish clamor, but as 
the master delivered his lecture he wrote the same on 
paper and afterwards read it over to himeslf or with a 
comrade). 2283. At this time the disciples and most 
devout pupils of our beloved father Florentius, whose 
lives I have written above, were still in the flesh, namely, 
Lubbert, Henry [Brune], Gerard [Zerbolt], Amilius, 
James [of Vianen], and John Ketel, and there were with 
them some others who had been amongst the first mem- 
bers of the community”, in other words, among the 
Twelve of Groote himself®*. 

What was more stimulating still, Radewijns, whom 
Thomas had now known for six years, felt that he was 
about to die. Many a time he sent Thomas to the Sisters 
in Groote’s old home to ask them to pray for him, and 
Thomas also served as his personal attendant in other 
ways. Although Radewijns did not die till 1400, often it 
seemed as if death would snatch him away long before 
the close of the year 1399. How often must not Thomas 


176 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


have been called to the bed-side of the sick rector. And 
the latter, more intent than ever on things spiritual, can- 
not have refrained from filling his pupil’s mind with 
spiritual thoughts. It is no wonder that to Thomas a 
Kempis we owe the best biographies of Groote, Rade- 
wijns, and Zerbolt. Moreover, the words of a dying 
man, or of one who believes he is dying, are always 
doubly impressive; they are always retained longest. On 
the works of Zerbolt and Ketel the breath of newly de- 
parted spirits lay fresh and magnetic; here the books of 
Groote, the founder, were passed from hand to hand; 
here Thomas found all the “rapiaria”’, or excerpt-books, 
~of the leaders, who had lived and labored in the brethren- 
house. In this house Thomas also found the Latin book 
composed by some one whose name the sources do not 
reveal, at least not in connection with the piece itself, 
for it seems to have disappeared very soon. This un- 
known work, very probably drawn up at Deventer by one 
or more brethren living in the vicarage of Radewijns, 
we know that Thomas a Kempis copied at Mount St. 
Agnes between 1416 and 1420, adding some chapters 
himself; and that it was copied almost immediately in 
many other monasteries and brethren-houses. Soon it 
became widely known as the ‘De Imitatione Christi”, or 
“Tmitation of Christ”. 


IV 


If two hundred or one hundred years ago a work had 
appeared in which the lives of Groote and his followers 
had been clearly portrayed and their literary productions 
carefully analyzed, probably but few books and articles 
would have been written on the authorship of the “Imita- 
tion of Christ”, for those who are well acquainted with 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 177 


the labors of Groote’s disciples at Deventer cannot sup- 
port the views of authors like Wolfsgruber, Puyol, and 
Renan. Fortunately, however, the long-disputed question 
has caused many a writer to discover evidence which 
otherwise would not have been found. Thus a vast 
amount of material has been made accessible to a relativ- 
ely large number of students. And although this material 
in itself has failed to convince thinkers that the “Imita- 
tion’’ was composed or put together in the Yssel country, 
nevertheless it will greatly lighten our task of showing 
that it was produced there. 

“In the first place’, writes Sir Francis Cruise, “I may 
state, with what I am satisfied is incontrovertible cer- 
tainty, that no manuscript of the ‘Imitation of Christ’ 
has ever been produced of an age antecedent to the 
mature manhood of Thomas a Kempis — that is to say, 
the first third of the fifteenth century’*®. How much 
paper has been wasted on this point alone! All the efforts 
of those who wanted to produce a copy written before 
1410 have failed. Loth, for example, found the first 
book of the “Imitation” in a manuscript at Paris which 
he believed to have been written in 1406°. Hence, he 
concludes, the work must have been produced before this 
date. A few years afterwards Becker carefully exam- 
ined the manuscript in question and found that it con- 
tained a collection of treatises written in many different 
hands. If one piece in it had been copied in 1406 or 
1410, that by no means implied that all the others were 
of the same date. 

About four hundred manuscripts are still in existence 
containing one or more books of the “Imitation”, most of 
which are undated. The oldest dated one written in 
France is from the year 1456; Italy can boast of no 
earlier dated copy than that of 1464. About 20 were 


178 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


written in Italy, 25 in France, 15 in England, 240 in 
Germany, 50 in Belgium, and 45 in Holland®*. It is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to estimate the exact age of an undated 
manuscript, for very often a copyist would write with 
exactly the same hand at the age of sixty as he had 
employed forty years earlier. Consequently one must 
always leave a margin of at least fifty years, wherefore 
even those copies written in an Italian Renaissance hand, 
such as the one found in the British Museum at Lon- 
don**, may very well have been written fifty years later 
than some people imagine®. 

As for the copies bearing a date, or provided with a 
note of some sort from which the correct date can be 
deduced, the earliest copy known containing all four 
books is the one found in the “Codex of Gaesdonck’’, 
written in the Augustinian monastery of Bethlehem near 
Doetinchem, a house of the chapter of Neuss, which 
joined the Windesheim Congregation in 1430. This was 
written in the year 1426°°. At Brussels, however, a 
manuscript is found in the Royal-Library (no. 10137) 
which has the first three books, written in the year 
1425* in the monastery of Windesheim for the monas- 
tery of Bodingen®*®. One year earlier, book I was copied 
in the house of the Brethren of the Common Life at 
Hulsbergen, near Zwolle®, and in 1420 or 1421 the 
Dutch translation of book I at Windesheim’. Then 
there is the so-called “Molk codex’’, or “Codex Mellic- 
ensis I’’, containing also book I of the “Imitation”, which 
may have been written in 1421, for the codex bears the 
number XXI (although this number does not follow 
after this book I, but after the “Contemplatio S. Bernardi 
de passione Domini”, wherefore the former piece may 
have been written much later). In this case it was very 
probably given by the representatives of Windesheim to 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 179 


those of the monastery of Molk when they met each 
other at the Council of Constance”. Next in order comes 
the “Codex Noviomagensis’’, written at Nijmegen in 
1427, also in a monastery of the Windesheim Congrega- 
tion’*. But there seems to be another copy, produced in 
1426 at Ewick, another house of the Windesheim circle, 
according to Spitzen’*. Then there is the “Codex Osna- 
brugensis”’, written in 1429 by the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life at Osnabriick’*, and then the ‘‘Codex Thev- 
enot”’ at Paris, written about the year 1430 in the 
brethren-house at Hulsbergen near Zwolle’’. The “Co- 
dex Roolf” was written in 1431, in the monastery of 
Bethlehem near Louvain, a monastery of the Congrega- 
tion of Windesheim‘®. It appears, therefore, that all or 
nearly all the earliest dated copies of the “Imitation” 
were written by the followers of Gerard Groote. More- 
over, the first German translation of the “Imitation” 
was made by the Brethren of the Common Life at 
Cologne in the year 14347. The Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life and the monks belonging to the Windesheim 
Congregation were at first solely responsible for the rapid 
spread of this remarkable work”. 

As for the verdict of the contemporary witnesses, this 
also points to Thomas a Kempis as the author, or editor, 
for those writers who in the fifteenth century regarded 
Gerson as the author, did not know who had first 
ascribed it to him and why. John Busch says that 
Thomas a Kempis wrote the “De Imitatione Christi”. 
True, even his opinion is sometimes disregarded; and 
more than that, one German writer uses it as evidence 
against the supporters of Thomas a Kempis, but with 
arguments that carry little weight®®. There is, too, the 
testimony of a certain Herman Rijd, who had talked 
with Thomas a Kempis himself**; also of a great many 


180 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


others*’. That so many contemporaries are silent on this 
question need not surprise us, for it was not customary 
for the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer to add 
the names of the authors or the dates to the works they 
were copying. Moreover, they had all been taught the . 
“ama nesciri’, or “love to remain unknown” by Groote 
and Radewijns, their spiritual ancestors**. And further- 
more, they all regarded Thomas a Kempis as the author 
of the “Imitation”; only, they would have been more 
exact if they had called him the compiler. 

That Gerson, the famous chancellor of the University 
of Paris, could not have written the “Imitation” is a 
well-established fact to-day**. But several writers in 
France, Italy, and England still favor the conclusion that 
the “Imitation of Christ’? must have been written in 
Italy about the middle of the thirteenth century. These 
authors as a rule know very little about the mystical pro- 
ductions of Groote, Radewijns, Zerbolt, Peters, and 
Mande. They write a great deal about a phantom in- 
vented by them, called John Gersen, abbot of a Benedict- 
ine monastery in Lombardy, who, they claim, composed 
the “Imitation”. In some mysterious way this work 
reached the Yssel valley about the year 1400 or 1410. 
Thomas a Kempis, they continue, found it there, copied 
it, and placed it at the head of his other works. They 
admit that the Brethren of the Common Life and the 
monks of Windesheim were the first to appreciate its 
inestimable worth. They argue (1) that only after they 
had made it known to the world did other people read 
and copy it, (2) that the thirteenth century was the 
golden age of monasticism, and that the Cistercians and 
Carthusians, who are mentioned in the “Imitation”, were 
true to their vows only in that century, so that no monk 
after the year 1400 could have pointed to those orders 


~ THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 181 


and say: “Observe the Carthusians, the Cistercians, and 
the monks and solitaries of various orders, how they do 
every night rise to sing Psalms to the Lord’”®*. Further- 
more, (3) that the fifteenth century was a time of strife, 
of civil war, and of disorder, in which a work like the 
“Imitation” could never have been composed; and (4) 
that, since it contains no references to Thomas Aquinas 
or any other scholastics of note, it must have been written 
before their time*®. 

To these arguments we reply (1) that John Gerson 
and John Gersen are one and the same person. Both 
names refer to the chancellor of the University of Paris, 
who defended the Brethren of the Common Life at the 
Council of Constance, but was not the sort of mystic to 
write a book like the “De Imitatione Christi’. His name 
was usually spelled “Gerson’’, though it is also quite often 
spelled ‘“‘Gersen” in fifteenth century manuscripts or 
incunabula. (2) And how could a work like the “Imita- 
tion”, written about the year 1250, have remained 
absolutely. unknown until the year 1415? If Thomas a 
Kempis discovered it on its mysterious and hypothetical 
journey from the plains of Lombardy to Deventer, he 
must have received it from Groote’s disciples, who gave 
him books to read, but who never referred to the ‘“Imita- 
tion” until he himself had copied it. That Thomas a 
Kempis copied it is beyond question, for his autograph 
copy, finished in 1441, is still in existence*’; and that 
Groote’s disciples were the first to distribute it is now, 
admitted. As to the argument about the Carthusians, 
Groote and his disciples respected that order very highly. 
(3) Also, they paid very little attention to civil wars. 
(4) That they refrained from quoting Thomas Aquinas 
in the “Imitation” is exactly what one should expect*’. 

But Thomas a Kempis was not the author of the whole 


182 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


“Tmitation”, if we use the term in the modern sense. 
The first Dutch translation of book I appeared in 1420 
or 1421 at Windesheim, as we have said; books I-III, 
found in the “Kirchheim Codex’, “were copied from 
the autograph of Thomas a Kempis in the bishopric of . 
Utrecht [at Windesheim] in 1425’’; and the ‘“‘Gaesdonck 
Codex”’ contains all the four books, copied in 1425, 
1426, or 1427. Then we have the autograph copy of. 
Thomas a Kempis at Brussels, with book I-IV, but 
book IV placed before book II, and followed by eight 
other works of Thomas himself, with a note at the end 
to the effect that this manuscript was written by him, 
and finished in the year 1441. Spitzen asserts that 
Thomas wrote the whole work in this codex before 1425, 
since the “Gaesdonck Codex”’ already has all the four 
books. He rightly concludes that Thomas must have 
written the original between 1416 and 1420°. Book 
I-III appeared in 1416 or 1417, and book IV in 1418 
or 1419°°. This view is supported by Paul Hagen of 
Liibeck®, who discovered a Low German translation of 
parts of books JII-IV in the “Stadt-bibliothek” of 
Litbeck. Bishop F. J. van Vree of Haarlem found a 
Dutch translation of two chapters of book IV in a 
manuscript left by the Sisters of the Common Life at 
Deventer*. Van Vree thought it possible that Thomas a 
Kempis borrowed these two chapters from some work 
composed by one or more disciples of Groote®*. He and 
-other writers, like Malou®*, Spitzen®®, Becker®*, and 
Bonet-Maury*’ have made an extended list of extracts 
from the works of Groote, Radewijns, and their follow- 
ers which they compared with corresponding passages 
in the “Imitation”. A few years later Becker, in a series 
of articles, endeavored to show the futility of all such 
work. He concluded that all one can prove, is a similarity 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 183 


in thought and construction®*; and he now holds that the 
“Imitation” is an original work, composed in the monas- 
tery of Mount St. Agnes near Zwolle. 

Thus matters stood when a short time ago Hagen 
published an article in the ‘“Beiaard’’, called “De Na- 
volging van Christus en Thomas van Kempen’’®’, which 
is the Dutch translation of an article intended for a 
German periodical**°. Hagen briefly commented here on 
the interesting discoveries he had made, and also gave the 
present writer some valuable information, explaining to 
him how he had conducted his researches. 

Among the numerous manuscripts in the City Library 
at Lubeck which originally belonged to the Sisters of the 
Common Life of that city, there are two which contain 
a treatise in Low German called “Admonitions tending 
to Things Internal’’***. Also, there is a manuscript in 
the same library in which chapters VI-IX of the fourth 
book of the “Imitation” are found, all in the same Low 
German dialect apparently in use at Litbeck in the 
fifteenth century’’’. This was not left by the Sisters of 
the Common Life living in the convent of Michael’, 
but by the beguines in the “Johanneshof”’, a house 
situated near that of the Sisters of the Common Life**. 
There can be no doubt that these beguines got this liter- 
ary material from their friends across the street, and 
that the latter, in turn, had received it from one of the 
sister-houses of Deventer or Westphalia, for it was the 
Low Countries that provided those pious women at 
Lubeck with religious productions of various kinds*°*. 
Just as Thomas a Kempis was only one of the many 
boys who received the teachings of Groote’s followers 
at Deventer, and just as the works he wrote had been 
preceded by a great many others, so did the sixty-four 
chapters of the “Imitation”, translated at Deventer and 


184 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


adapted for the use of the sisters at Liibeck, form merely 
a small portion of the writings produced originally at 
Deventer and spread abroad by the disciples of Gerard 
Groote. 

What conclusions are we justified in drawing? Those . 
sixty-four chapters in the Low German dialect, which we 
shall call L, were put together by Thomas a Kempis 
when he was still living at Deventer, and must be looked 
upon as the work of Radewijns, Zerbolt, or one of their 
followers. Now, L differs so much from~-the other 
chapters of book III and IV that they must have been 
written by two different personalities and at different 
times, even though the whole work seems after all to 
have been compiled by Thomas a Kempis, as will be 
shown presently. We find, for example, that in the first 
twelve chapters in L the word “O” occurs but once, while 
in the very few fragments found in book II of the 
“Imitation” (which, as we know, consists of twelve 
chapters), and which are lacking in L, it occurs 25 times. 
In the first sixty chapters of L we find it but 9 times; 
but in the few passages missing here and found in the 
complete “Imitation”, it occurs 30 times. It is well 
known that Thomas a Kempis in his later life was in the 
habit of using this interjection. The almost complete 
absence of the interjection in the L chapters proves that 
these were written during the last year spent by Thomas 
at Deventer, where he was so strongly influenced by the 
lives and ideals of Radewijns, Zerbolt, Ketel, and Ten 
Bossche. The interjections used by Thomas 4 Kempis 
are often followed by rhetorical questions. Such ques- 
tions rarely occur in L. Thus we read in chapter XXI 
of book III of the “Imitation” proper: ‘O when shall 
it be fully granted me, to consider in quietness of mind 
and see how sweet thou art, my Lord God’? And in 


THE. “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 185 


chapter XXXIV: “O when will that blessed and desired 
hour come’? In chapter XLVIII no fewer than ten such 
questions succeed each other, of which the first and last 
start with ‘(CO when”, and the others with ‘When’. 
Rhetorical questions are very often repeated in other 
works by Thomas a Kempis, as, in the “Valley of 
Lilies”, where, in chapter XXVI, eight similar questions 
are found with the word “O” in six, and the word 
“when” in eight. Rhetorical repetitions are also charac- 
teristic of Thomas a Kempis’ own style. When the 
writer of the L chapters repeats a word as he repeats 
“in the cross” nine times in chapter XII of the second 
book of the “Imitation”, it is because this is strictly 
necessary; when Thomas a Kempis repeats, as in using 
“many” in book III, chapter XLVIII, he does so rhe- 
torically. A second example of this sort of repetition, 
which the L chapters do not have, can be found in book 
III, chapter XXI, where “above all’. occurs eighteen 
times, and in addition the word ‘‘thow” is used seven 
times, the word “alone’’ six times. Here eleven super- 
latives are employed. Again, that part of book III, 
chapter LVIII which has the word “I” sixteen times, 
in a series, is not a part of the L chapters. 

The difference in style between the L chapters and 
those added by Thomas a Kempis is further illustrated 
by the manner in which God is invoked. While L has 
only nine comparatively short titles by which to invoke 
God, the whole “Imitation” has forty-one, some of which 
are quite elaborate and rhetorical’®®. It is worth noting 
also that every one of the titles found in the “Imitation”, 
but absent in L, repeatedly occurs in the other writings 
of Thomas a Kempis. He undoubtedly was the person 
who worked over the Latin equivalent of L, adding the 
customary interjections, questions, and exclamations, so 


186 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


characteristic of his own works. The material he found 
at Deventer in the year 1398-1399 is simpler in style, 
and far more powerful than the paragraphs which he 
added on Mount St. Agnes. 

One can also prove that the matter which was added © 
to L was added by a young monk. In 1416 Thomas a 
Kempis was a young monk. He was the young monk 
who wrote that “the life of a good monk is a cross’, and 
that once having proceeded, it will not do for him to look - 
behind him. The author of L; on the contrary, must have 
been a man of ripe experience outside of a monastery. 
Apparently he had not been a monk in his previous life, 
or at least not for a long period. Thomas himself wrote 
especially for monks, as the contents of book.III, chapter 
X plainly indicate, whereas L was not addressed to 
monks only, but to all Christians generally. He who 
wrote L, even if he was a monk, which appears very 
doubtful, nowhere so enthusiastically praises monastic- 
ism as Thomas a Kempis does. Thomas writes in chap- 
ter X of book III: “For it is not granted all to forsake . 
all, to renounce the world, and to undertake a life of 
religious [monastic] retiredness......... O sacred state 
of religious [monastic] servitude”....... .. In chapter 
LVI we read: “Truly the life of a good monk is a cross”’; 
this same sentence is also found in Vol. IV of his 
“Opera”,-p. 249. 

In the use of dialogue the writer of L far surpasses 
Thomas a Kempis. In L the Lord is the principal 
speaker, and he is not interrupted by approbation, where- 
as, in those chapters of book II not found in L, the 
author, who is Thomas a Kempis himself, often breaks 
into the dialogue, and in a wholly unwarranted and in- 
artistic fashion, just as he does in Vol. V of his “Opera”, 
on pp. 146-150. There he at first addresses Christ, and 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 187 


then speaks to Jesus, Pilate, the reader, and humanity in 
general, after which he turns to Christ once more. In 
L the Lord affirms the words of his Son with a short “It 
is so, my Son” (chapter XII of book III); whereas in 
the “Imitation” we read: “O Lord, it is true’, in which 
the author injects his own personality (book III, chapter 
IV, of which this part is lacking in L), and: “O Lord, 
what thou sayest is true’ (in: book III, chapter XVII; 
also lacking in L). In a similar way Thomas throws in 
some remarks of his own, thus interrupting the Lord, 
in book III, chapter XXIII: “O Lord, do as thou sayest, 
for this is delightful for me to hear”, just as he does in 
Vol. I of his “Opera”, on p. 4: “Thou hast well said, 
Lord’, and in Vol. IV, on p. 199: “O Lord, it is true 
what thou sayest: all that thou sayest pleases me’’. 
When one comes to analyze the subject matter of L, 
one sees that chapters I-XII, XITI-LX, and LXI-LXIV 
form three independent and original treatises. They are 
not dependent on the chapters which follow them in the 
“Imitation” proper. Chapters I-XII of L correspond to 
book II of the ‘Imitation’, which Thomas himself 
treated as a separate piece of work with a title of its own. 
Chapters XIII—-LX are like forty-eight chapters of book 
III, and the way in which they close proves that here the 
original treatise, called: “Of Internal Consolation’’, ends. 
In L chapters I-LX appear like one treatise, beginning 
with the celebrated saying of Christ: “The kingdom of 
heaven is within you”. They close with the following 
sentence: “Give me a happy departure from this world, 
and lead me straight-way into the kingdom. Amen”. 
They begin and finish with “the kingdom of heaven”. 
Thomas spoiled this fitting end by adding some material 
of his own, and by changing the order of some of the 
chapters. The same can be said of chapters LXI-LXIV 


188 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of L, which also form an independent treatise with a 
title and a fitting close. They constitute the best part of 
book IV of the “Imitation”; in form and contents they 
can be easily distinguished from the preceding and follow- 
ing chapters of book IV. Their title is: “A Short and 
Fitting Exercise for the Communion Service”, which 
“exercise” forcibly reminds us of the religious exercises, 
or “devota exercitia”, of the men at Deventer who left 
Thomas a Kempis in possession of their literary pro- 
ductions. 

The chapters discovered in Libeck (the L chapters) 
enable us to restore the original text of the whole “Imita- 
tion”. In doing this one can correct mistakes made by - 
Thomas a Kempis in copying the treasures he brought 
from Deventer. In book II, chapter X of the “Imitation”’ 
we read for example: “Semper enim debetur gratia digne 
gratias referenti: et auferetur ab elato quod dari solet 
humili”. The word “debetur”’ cannot possibly be correct. 
The disciples of Groote at Deventer, in common with 
most theologians in Europe at that time, believed that 
“grace’’ was always freely bestowed, and never earned 
by any mortal being. No one of them would ever have 
said that grace ought to be given to anybody, as if God 
was obliged to give it as a sort of payment. When 
Thomas came to this place he probably found the word 
in question in an abbreviated form, as very many words 
were abbreviated in his day. The original certainly did 
not have “debetur”, but “dabitur’. Thus we read in 
Matthew XIII, 12: “Quia enim habet, dabitur ei, et abun- 
dabit: qui autem non habet, et quod habet auferetur 
ab eo”. What does L have here? For “debetur” we find 
“wet gheven”, or “it will be given’, which is the 
equivalent of the Latin “dabitur”’. 

In book IV, chapter IX we read: “Offero quoque tibi 


THE “IMITATION OF CHRIST” 189 


omnia pia desideria devotorum: necessitates parentum, 
amicorum, fratrum, sororum, omniumque carorum me- 
orum”. The word “amicorum” cannot be in its right 
place here, for who would ever think of saying: “My 
parents, friends, brothers, sisters, and all my dear ones 
(friends)”? The author must have said: “My parents, 
brothers, sisters, and all my friends (or dear ones, which 
means friends)’. Hence we read in L: “My parents, 
brothers, sisters, and all my dear friends’. Thomas mis- 
took the word “meorum” for ‘“amicorum’”, and the 
original must have been: “necessitates parentum meorum, 
fratrum, sororum, omniumque carorum meorum”. Two 
copies of the “Imitation” have already been found which 
have “‘meorum” instead of ‘‘amicorum’’, and more will 
doubtless be produced later on. It can also be proved that 
most of the chapters in book IV of the “Imitation” were 
composed by Thomas a Kempis, that he must have found 
one other short treatise corresponding to chapters X, XII, 
XV, and XVIII of this book, and still another which 
was transformed into book I, but lack of space forbids 
further discussion here. 

Once more then we must ask why the “Imitation” at 
once acquired such world-wide circulation, leaving the 
other productions by Thomas a Kempis far, far behind? 
He did indeed place it at the head of his other works, 
thereby showing that he regarded it as his own work. 
And John Busch called Thomas its author. The “Imita- 
tion” in its present form, therefore, may be termed the 
work of Thomas a Kempis, using this term in its early 
sense, for he composed a considerable portion of the 
work himself, and worked over into it the “devout exer- 
cises’” of Radewijns, Zerbolt, Ketel, and Ten Bossche, 
which he later adopted for the use of novices at Mount 
St. Agnes. It should be noted in particular that Floren- 


190 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


tius Radewijns, rector of the brethren at Deventer, and 
the acknowledged head of the “New Devotion”, was a 
poor copyist. Before he fell sick in 1398 it was his 
custom merely to bind and to draw lines in the manu- 
scripts which the brothers needed for their writing. 
During his illness, when Thomas a Kempis waited on 
him, he probably dictated letters and other compositions 
to Thomas. 

Radewijns was the only person whom Groote con- — 
sidered fit for the priesthood. A halo of sanctity sur- 
rounded his beloved personality. Thousands of people 
had come to him for advice and help. The sick, the poor, — 
and the afflicted—all had been comforted by him. Though 
not a brilliant author, he composed some treatises from 
which Gerard Zerbolt had partially copied his two mys- 
tical works. No one had composed “religious exercises”’ 
which resemble the L chapters so closely as those which 
flowed from his pen. It is he, therefore, who should be 
considered as the real author of those L chapters, and 
of book I of the “‘Imitation’’ — in other words, of that | 
part of the “Imitation of Christ’? which made it, next to 
the Bible, the most popular book in Europe. 


CHAPTER VI 
WESSEL GANSFORT 


“Behold” ! wrote Luther one day in surprise, “a Wessel 
has appeared, whom they call Basil, a Frisian from Gro- 
ningen, a man of remarkable ability and of rare and 
great spirit; and it is evident that he has been truly 
taught of the Lord, even as Esaias prophesied the Chris- 
tians would be........ If I had read his works earlier, 
my enemies might think that Luther had absorbed every- 
thing from Wessel: his spirit is so in accord with mine. 
But now my joy and courage begin to increase, and I 
have not the slightest doubt that I have been teaching 
the truth, since he, living at so different a time, under 
another sky, in another land, and under such diverse cir- 
cumstances, is so consistently in accord with me in all 
things, not only as to substance, but in the use of almost 
the same words’’’. It was in the year 1522 that Luther 
made this remarkable statement about Wessel Gansfort. 
What could have induced the victorious Reformer to 
draw such a sweeping conclusion as to that “most Chris- 
tian author’, as Luther called Gansfort a little later? Why 
had Gansfort remained so little known, and how did his 
writings resemble those of Martin Luther so closely? 


I 


Wessel Gansfort was born at Groningen in the year 
1419 or 1420. His parents were poor and intended to 
make him go to work at a tender age, after they had let 

IOF 


192 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


him go to school for a few years. But a kind woman, 
Oda Jarges, enabled him to stay in school. The sources 
do not inform us which school the boy’s friend selected 
for him. Probably he went at first to the old school 
attached to St. Martin’s, the leading church in Groningen. 
Certain it is, however, that in 1432 or soon thereafter he 
was sent to Zwolle, which at that time was the centre of 
the ‘New Devotion”. Here John Cele had taught for | 
more than forty years, making his school so famous that 
both John Sturm and John Calvin would later make it 
their model for their “gymnasia”’ at Strasbourg and 
Geneva respectively. 

Wessel remained seventeen years at Zwolle. A good 
many if not all of those seventeen years he spent in the 
“Parva Domus’’, the dormitory erected by the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Zwolle for boys attending the 
city school’. In this dormitory there was an assembly 
room for the students, as was customary in many other 
houses of these pious brethren. After Wessel had passed 
through the eight grades of the town school, he became — 
a teacher there. He also taught in the dormitory from 
1440 till 1449°. Very soon an intimate friendship sprang 
up between Wessel and the “Procurator” of this dormi- 
tory. Whenever of an evening the latter held his address 
to the inmates of the building, Wessel would stand by 
his side, thus “inspiring the boys to love virtue and to 
hate vice’’*, — again, that characteristic stress on the 
fight against defects in character, or in other words, 
against sin. And again, that insistence on the increase 
in virtue and eradication of vice! 

In the room next to Wessel’s a young boy was staying, 
who could communicate with his brilliant neighbor 
through a small window. They would have long talks 
with each other, Wessel imparting learning, the other, 


WESSEL GANSFORT 193 


the “fear and love of God’. What a significant phrase 
for our chronicler to use: “the fear and love of God’! 
Groote’s disciples often would muse upon this text : “The 
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. Rade- 
wijns had repeatedly pointed out that the last vestiges of 
sin should be removed, before perfect love could find an 
abiding place in the human heart, — again that contrast 
between vice and virtue, unrest and peace, punishment 
and reward, preached and lived by the Brethren of the 
Common Life. . 

One wonders what kind of instruction was given in 
the school-room of the “Parva domus”. Much of it must 
have been purely religious, for the city school provided 
the pupils with the best instruction of other kinds that 
could be desired. The boys undoubtedly received a 
splendid opportunity to rehearse their lessons in the 
dormitory. This was one of the reasons why the schools 
of Zwolle, Deventer, Liege, and Wesel became so 
popular. It is probable that a great deal of time in the 
school-room of Wessel’s dormitory. was devoted to the 
art of writing, illuminating, and binding of manuscripts, 
by which the Brethren of the Common Life themselves 
largely made their living. Many of the boys living in the 
dormitory sooner or later became members of this 
brotherhood; in fact it was from such ranks that most 
of the new members were generally taken. In the pre- 
ceding chapter we saw that a considerable number of 
manuscripts at Liege, Cologne, and Dusseldorf were 
produced in the dormitories erected by the brethren at 
Deventer and Zwolle, so that the presumption is that 
much of the work connected with the production of 
manuscripts was performed, or at least learned by the 
boys living in those dormitories. 

And what were the writings that the boys at Zwolle 


194 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


and Deventer were instructed to copy? Included among 
them were not only the works of Groote, Radewijns, and 
Zerbolt, but also the Bible and the Fathers, together with 
some mystical productions of certain saints like Bernard, 
Francis of Assisi, and Bonaventura. A large number of | 
copies of the “Imitation of Christ’? must have been turned 
out by them, too. But as for the leading scholastic writ- 
ings of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, 
the Brethren of the Common Life said of them that 
they were lacking in personal religion®. Thomas a 
Kempis expressed the same view when he wrote: “Tell 
me now, where are all those Doctors and Masters, with 
whom thou wast well acquainted whilst they lived and 
flourished in learning? In their lifetime they seemed 
something, but now they are not spoken of.......... 
What availeth it to cavil [and dispute] much about dark 
and hidden things? It isa great folly to neglect the things 
that are profitable and necessary, and give our minds to 
that which is curious and hurtful. And what have we to. 
do with genus and species (the dry notions of logic- 
ians)’’'? The chronicler thought he could say no better 
thing about Wessel Gansfort than that he was wont to 
go to the procurator’s evening address as one of the least 
among the boys, and that he inspired them to improve 
their characters. 

Only three miles north-east of Zwolle was situated the 
humble monastery of Mount St. Agnes, where still lived 
Thomas Hemerken of Kempen, known as the author of 
the ‘Imitation of Christ’, and loved for his childlike 
piety. Wessel soon made it a habit to take a walk to 
“Agnietenberg’’, as the hill and its monastery were called, 
in order to have a talk with the venerable recluse. With 
feelings of boundless reverence he would approach his 
beloved friend. Thomas a Kempis and he had both been 


WESSEL GANSFORT 195 


instructed by the Brethren of the Common Life. The 
only difference between these two followers of Groote 
was the divergence in their outlook on life’s duties. 
Thomas had felt the call of the monastery and obeyed it; 
Wessel believed duty should keep him outside. There are 
writers who do not themselves see any good in monastic- 
ism, and who have invented stories to the effect that 
Wessel was “shocked” by the “superstitious” views of 
Thomas a Kempis on monasticism and also on the 
veneration of Mary. As a matter of fact, Wessel’s views 
on these points were identical with those of Thomas a 
KKempis, as appears from statements of his which seem 
to have been overlooked by these biographers’. 
As we have seen, nobody was unduly urged by the 
Brethren of the Common Life to enter a monastery. 
Gerard Groote himself had never after 1380 wanted to 
re-enter one. If the brethren at Deventer and Zwolle had 
actually believed that the monastic state embodied all 
that was most noble and perfect in religion, they them- 
selves would not have remained outside the walls of a 
monastery. That Gansfort appreciated the value of 
silence and rest cannot be doubted, but his was a work 
to be done outside of the monasteries. When time came 
at last for him to part with his friends at Zwolle and 
Mount St. Agnes, he did not act against their wishes, 
and later was to return and finish his work among them. 
In the fall of the year 1449 Gansfort matriculated as 
a student in the department of “arts” at the University 
of Cologne. He was fortunate to secure a place in an 
endowed dormitory, where he made good progress. In 
1450 he obtained an A. B. degree, in 1452 the degree 
of Master of Arts. In December, 1452, he seems to have 
left Cologne for Louvain, where he probably stayed until 
August, 1453. In 1454 and 1455 he was at Paris, which 


196 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE > 


place he left in the summer of 1455, having accepted an 
appointment as professor in the University of Cologne. 
The next year he departed for Heidelberg, where he 
taught for one year. Then we meet him again among the 
Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle’. 

The year 1458 closes the first period of Gansfort’s 
absence from his native country. He had been connected 
with several universities of note, but had felt no inclina-_ 
tion to remain long in any definite place. Why he so 
suddenly returned to Zwolle we do not know. Certain 
it is, however, that this time the Yssel country could not 
hold him, for in the same year, 1458, he arrived at Paris 
once more, now to stay longer. Paris was the city where 
Groote had received his university training, and for one 
in search of higher learning it seemed about the best 
place in Europe. At any rate, Gansfort liked it there. 
With the exception of a short trip to Angers about the 
year 1461, concerning which but little is known, he re- 
mained at Paris from 1458 till 1469. 

What was the reason why Gansfort grew to like Paris 
so well that for a number of years he gave up his travels? 
It was not on account of some advantageous position, 
since he occupied no official post of any kind, nor was it 
for any mercenary reasons, since he cared little for money 
and still less for fame. He found here a group of 
thinkers, the followers of Occam in philosophy, and of 
Ailly and Gerson in theology. Gansfort enthusiastically 
supported the Occamists, but not because he was of their _ 
particular system of philosophy. One reason why he 
joined the Occamists at Paris was because he considered 
their views in harmony with the teachings promulgated 
by the Church Fathers*®. Another and more potent reason 
was the fact that Ailly and Gerson had also been Occam- 
ists, as well as most other prominent leaders in the 


WESSEL GANSFORT 197 


Church who strove to fight the many abuses among the 
clergy. He knew that Ailly and Gerson had supported 
‘the Brethren of the Common Life, and that they revered 
Hugo of St. Victor, abbot of the celebrated Augustinian | 
monastery near Paris, whence the founders of Windes- 
heim had obtained a goodly share of their theology”. 
Many people at Paris were now reading the works of 
Gerard Zerbolt and Thomas a Kempis, and here Gansfort 
felt himself among friends. 

In 1469 Gansfort decided to make a trip to Rome, for 
he had heard much about the artists and scholars of the 
“eternal city”, and many people from the Netherlands 
were making pilgrimages to Rome. He soon became 
acquainted with several members of the papal court, and 
tells of an occasion when he held a dispute with two 
of them in the presence of some other person, all three 
being graduates of the University of Paris. The subject 
under debate was indulgences, and Gansfort challenged 
them to put forward any bit of evidence or any argu- 
ment. His own arguments were based entirely on the 
Holy Scriptures. One of the group, John of Picardy, 
had just come from Paris, where he had heard Gansfort 
dispute before, and he advised him to keep his views to 
himself in Rome. 

Of very great significance is Gansfort’s friendship 
with Francesco della Rovere, who afterwards became 
Pope Sixtus IV, and with Bessarion. These two men he 
seems to have met first at Rome in 1470. By this time 
he was personally acquainted with many leaders in the 
Church throughout Europe. 

In 1470 Gansfort returned to Paris, where he met 
John Reuchlin, the German humanist. Melanchton relates 
that Reuchlin used to regard his learned friend from 
Groningen with feelings of affection and veneration. 


198 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Gansfort had now become a man of considerable note 
among the greatest scholars in France. Very curious 
stories are told by contemporary writers about his doings 
at Paris in 1473. Melanchton says that he was expelled 
from Paris for having attacked the superstitious views. 
of certain dignitaries in the Church; another writer re- 
marks that Gansfort had this time been called to France 
by King Louis XI on account of his extraordinary learn- 
ing, in order that he might be a sort of pillar to sustain 
the tottering university. Still another writer speaks of 
him as ‘Wessel of Groningen, the restorer of the 
University of Paris under Louis XI’. Several other 
accounts to the same effect as the last two, all from the 
pens of leading scholars, impress one with the fact that 
Gansfort occupied a place of great distinction at Paris*’. 
Afterwards, when almost too old to teach, he was invited 
once more by the French king to come to Paris. 

But while it is evident that Gansfort was enjoying the 
appreciation of the most distinguished men at Paris, he 
had made many enemies in his various attempts to re- 
form the Church. In February, 1473, he received the 
following letter from the bishop of Utrecht: 


“Beloved Son, Wessel: 

We command our blessing to abide ever upon you. We 
would have you know that we need you here in person 
at this time to give good counsel to our soul. I have 
many about me who esteem you greatly for your learning 
and character; but I do not hear them teach the truths 
that long ago you were accustomed to declare so faith- 
fully. 

I have long been aware of your brilliancy as a teacher 
and yet I know that there are many who are seeking to 
destroy you. This shall never be so long as I am alive 


WESSEL GANSFORT 199 


to protect you. But come to me as quickly as possible, 
that I may talk everything over with you, and may have 
with me one in whom I delight my soul. 
Farewell, 
I am the unworthy Bishop 
Vollenhove, David. 
On the eve of the feast of Pontian (Jan. 13), in 
the year of our Lord, 1473*. 


Gansfort did not leave immediately for the Nether- 
lands, however, for he wanted to visit Italy again, to 
seek audience with his former friend Francesco, now 
Pope Sixtus IV. On meeting him, the pope exclaimed: 
“My son, ask me what you wish; I will refuse you noth- 
ing that is in keeping with my esteem for you and with 
your circumstances”. To which Gansfort promptly re- 
plied: ‘Most holy Father, my kind and just patron, 
there is nothing with which I would greatly burden your 
Holiness. I have never sought great honors, as you 
know; but since you now sustain the character of the 
Supreme Priest and Shepherd upon earth, I pray that 
your reputation may correspond with your name; and 
that you may so administer your high office that when 
the great Shepherd of the sheep, whose chief servant on 
earth you are, shall come, he may say, ‘Well done, good 
and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord’ ”. Then Sixtus replied: “This shall be my concern; 
do you ask something for yourself’’. ‘Well then’, said 
Gansfort, “I beg you to give me a Greek and a Hebrew 
Bible from the Vatican library”. “These shall be given 
to you’, Sixtus answered. “But, you foolish man, why 
do you not ask for a bishopric or something similar?” 
“Because I do not need it”, was Gansfort’s final reply’. 

In some respects Gansfort must have been disappointed 


200 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


in Rome. He had come from cities where the lives. of 
Florentius Radewijns and Theodore Herxen, rectors of 
the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer and 
Zwolle, had been shining lights to guide their followers, 
of whom he was one. There the ‘Spiritual Ascensions”’ 
and the “Imitation of Christ” had been composed, un- 
equaled by anything else in the religious world. One 
would have expected such men and such books from 
Rome rather than from Deventer and Zwolle, for here 
lived the leaders of the whole Church, here lived the pope! 
But the lives and the writings of these leaders did not 
embody the purest fruits of Christian thinking in Gans- 
fort’s eyes. Rome did not keep him longer than a few 
months; then he started north again, toward the Yssel, 
country. 

On his way he visited Florence, then the worid-famous 
home of the Platonic Academy of Lorenzo de’ Medici 
and Marsilius Ficinus. However magnificent the city, 
however witty and polished its inhabitants, and learned 
its scholars, Florence also did not attract Gansfort. If 
Augustine had lived there at that time, or Bernard, sur- 
rounded by a circle of admirers, such as were now 
flocking around Ficinus, Gansfort might have lingered 
for years. As it was, the simple men of Zwolle attracted 
him more, he said, than the humanists at Florence’®; 
wherefore he did not tarry there. From Florence he 
seems to have gone to Venice, for he visited that city in 
1474; Melanchton mentions his stay at Basel, where he 
was said to have taught Greek and Hebrew for a few 
months. Then, traveling down the Rhine, he finally 
arrived in the Yssel country once more*®. 

What were the impressions he had received of the 
university men at Paris and Cologne, and what did he 
have to say about his friends in Rome? Shortly after 


WESSEL GANSFORT 201 


arriving at Zwolle, Gansfort wrote a treatise, called “On 
the Sacrament of Penance’’, in which he set down some’ 
of his views regarding the leading scholars of his time. 
Says he: “Knowledge is the interpreter of truth; wisdom 
is concerned with our welfare. Hence knowledge may 
be useless and vain. Such is all knowledge which follows 
truth out of curiosity. Just as the garrulousness of 
women is foolish because it seeks satisfaction in mere 
talk, so knowledge seeks merely the truth. But wisdom 
seeks the benefit from the truth...... There is a strong 
and weighty argument against universities to be drawn 
from the fact that Paul secured but little fruit at Athens; 
accomplishing more in the neighboring city of Corinth 
and in Thessaly, which was then almost barbarous, than 
in the Attic city, at that time the fountain of Greek 
philosophy. It goes to show that liberal studies are not 
very pleasing to God. In fact what I saw when I lived 
in Cologne and Paris is certainly hateful to God, — not 
the study of sacred literature, but the moral corruption 
existing in the midst of such studies........ ‘Many 
publicans and sinners sat down with Jesus; for there 
were ‘many, and they followed him’. This word points 
to the great corruption of the Pharisees and scribes of 
that time. For although from childhood they had received 
holy training in the Law, they practised it for gain rather 
than for piety, and they neither heeded nor followed 
piety, even when it displayed itself incarnate. Instead 
they scoffed, they mocked, they persecuted........ To- 
day, we have good reason to fear that there is a still 
worse plague in the corruption of our preachers and 
pastors. Publicans and harlots will be converted to right- 
eousness more easily in the great day of the Lord than 
men of this sort, who know the will of God and yet scoft 
avite; 


z02 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


* One would almost think that he heard Groote again. 
Groote also had studied at Paris, had observed the clergy 
at Cologne, and the papal court at Avignon, and also had 
returned to the Yssel valley, if not with feelings of regret 
for some of his past experiences, at least with the knowl- 
edge that the clergy of his day were not always good — 
servants of Christ, though they were expected to be. He 
also had been accustomed to draw a distinction between 
mere knowledge and wisdom, or the correct use of 
knowledge. Groote and his followers also had regarded 
knowledge as a tool, no more and no less, as a tool that 
might be put to good or harmful uses. They were by no 
means opposed to the acquisition of knowledge, for how 
could they themselves work without tools, and why should 
they have wanted to work without them? 

This time Gansfort had come to the Low Countries 
to stay. For fame and wealth, for honor and distinction 
he did not care. His desire was to associate himself with 
men who were sincere and true to their word. He knew 
that Zwolle and Groningen possessed an extraordinarily. 
large number of such men. And, though Thomas a 
Kempis had died in 1471, there were still many other 
sincere men in the monastery of Mount St. Agnes. Then 
there was the monastery of Adwert, five miles north-west 
of Groningen, where several men of his kind used to 
meet. In these four places, accordingly, Zwolle, Mount 
St. Agnes, Adwert, and Groningen, Gansfort chose to 
spend the remainder of his life,) first residing chiefly at 
Zwolle and Mount St. Agnes, after 1482 more generally 
at Adwert and Groningen’®. 

At Zwolle, Gansfort must have been warmly welcomed 
by the Brethren of the Common Life, for they might 
rightly regard him as one of themselves. One incident is 
told which proves their regard for him. In April, 1482 


WESSEL GANSFORT 203 


he was asked to cure Albert of Calcar, the rector, of a 
serious illness. About his life on Mount St. Agnes we 
have little information; he seems to have been there a 
great deal between 1475 and 1482, but often was called 
away by the bishop of Utrecht, who usually resided in 
the little town of Vollenhove on the Zuiderzee. Gansfort 
acted as the bishop’s physician, and was treated as a 
trusted companion’’. 

We are pretty well acquainted with Gansfort’s ex- 
periences in the Cistercian monastery of Adwert, where 
the chief humanists in German lands used to gather for 
exchange of views, always cordially invited by the learn- 
ed abbot Henry van Rees. Rudolph von Langen was 
often found there, and Alexander Hegius, as well as 
Gansfort’s compatriot, Rudolph Agricola. One day a 
learned professor from Paris came, too. Gansfort invited 
him to have a discussion. After they had touched upon a 
considerable number of topics, the professor from Paris 
suddenly threw off his doctor’s cap, and exclaimed in ad- 
miration: ‘You are either a second Alanus [de Insulis], 
or an angel from heaven, or something I shan’t name. 
Praise the Lord, I have not been deceived in my expecta- 
tions. I have not sought you in vain. Not without reason 
did the scholars at the Sorbonne call you the ‘Master of 
contradictions’, and admire and hate you for it’. 

At Adwert Gansfort passed much of his time in con- 
versation with the monks. He would often read Hebrew 
to them. To the younger monks he would explain the 
Psalms, and remark frequently that the Latin Vulgate 
was not very clear in places; whereupon some one would 
quickly fetch him the Hebrew text. After a few years, 
Gansfort’s eyes becanie so weak that he would often 
blunder in his reading. This amused the monks greatly, 
which may perhaps account for the fact that Gansfort 


204 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


now preferred to make his home in Groningen, where he 
was taken in by the nuns of a small convent, called the 
“Convent of the Spiritual Virgins”. He probably lived 
there before 1484, for it appears from various sources 
that he and Agricola used to visit each other a great deal. 
In one of his letters Agricola writes: “I am often invited 
to his table and live on very intimate terms with him’’. 
Melanchton also relates that the two men were united by 
ties of the deepest friendship. Gansfort was visited also 
by John Oostendorp and Herman Torrentinus, pupils of 
Hegius and of the Brethren of the Common Life. Be- 
sides, he was in active correspondence with many prom- 
inent men. He should now have stopped studying, for 
his health began to fail rapidly, but he kept on reading 
and writing. Shortly before his death he had a period 
of doubt as to the doctrines of the Church, but it did not 
last long. “Now I know nothing else’, he faltered, “than 
Jesus Christ and him crucified”. With this confession 
he passed away, on the fourth of October, 1489”. 


II 


“An humble knowledge of thyself is a surer way to 
God than a deep search after learning; yet learning is 
not to be blamed, nor the mere knowledge of any thing 
whatsoever to be disliked, it being good in itself, and 
ordained by God. But because many endeavor rather to 
get knowledge than to live well, therefore they are often 
deceived”. Thus reads the third chapter of the “Imitation 
of Christ”. Gansfort must often have read this chapter 
with approbation, for he always listened attentively to 
his teachers and friends at Zwolle and Mount St. Agnes. 
At Cologne, at Paris, and in Italy he had constantly 
sharpened the tools of his mind with which nature had 


WESSEL GANSFORT 205 


generously equipped him. Long before Erasmus was 
born, and at a time when probably few other natives of 
Transalpine Europe knew Greek, Gansfort had mastered 
this language, together with the rudiments of Hebrew. 
Logic, argumentation, and scholastic philosophy had been 
studied carefully by him, but empty words and arguments 
used only for argument’s sake were valueless in his 
opinion. Thus he condemned equally those doctors at 
Paris and Cologne who would argue for hours on 
questions which were wholly lacking in practical value, 
and the theologians of his day who were speaking 
and writing on momentous questions without having 
taken pains to master the elements at least of sound scho- 
lasticism. We find him making the following remark in 
one of his letters concerning John of Wesel, a con- 
temporary scholar: “You have heard of the peril of that 
venerable man, Master John of Wesel. Now, although— 
as you have heard me say repeatedly—I do not like his 
absurdities, which deviate from the truth and are a 
stumbling block to the people; yet his learning and un- 
usually keen faculties are such that I cannot help loving 
the man and sympathizing with him in his misfortune. 
Oh, what an advantage it would have been to him, as 
I often said inter nos at Paris, 1f he had first been train- 
ed thoroughly, as we were, in the studies both of the 
Realists and the Formalists! For in that case he would 
not have been incautious and off his guard, but as if 
from a citadel and watch-tower he would have foreseen 
the coming assault......... I have often feared his in- 
considerate and rash manner of speech. For although 
his teaching had some scholastic subtlety and possibly at 
times contained some catholic truth, yet to make such 
statements as he did to the unlearned crowd and to those 
who were incapable of understanding them caused serious 


206 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


scandal to simple-minded people and was altogether 
odious’”??. 

Few men of Gansfort’s day were so eager as he to 
acquire knowledge. It is a credit to him that about the 
year 1455 he had mastered the elements of the Greek and 
Hebrew tongues, without the aid of any text-books™, 
and at a time when no instruction in these languages was 
given in Northern Europe. Of course, one must not 
ascribe to him an extensive knowledge of either Greek 
or Hebrew, but he was able at least to read several 
books in the Greek and Hebrew original**. To him 
also belongs the credit for having first employed 
the word Jehovah in lands beyond the Alps”. He was 
now able to read the Bible in the original, except a very 
small part, and there is no doubt that he had time and 
again perused all of its books. The Talmud and the 
Koran were not quite so familiar to him, but he refers 
in. one place to their contents. Among the ancient writers 
he quotes from Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, 
Demosthenes, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Procul, Themis- 
tius, Virgil, Valerius Maximus, and Aulus Gellius; 
among Church Fathers from: Augustine, Jerome, Chry- 
sostom, Ambrose, Origen, Gregory of Nazianze, Athan- 
asius ; and he also quotes from: Dionysius the Areopagite, 
Gregory the Great, Bernard, Bonaventura, Thomas 
Aquinas, Hugo of St. Victor, Gerson, Ailly, Occam, and 
a few others of lesser note”. 

Having lived with the Brethren of the Common Life 
from his twelfth till his twenty-ninth year, Gansfort 
owed much to these followers of Gerard Groote, and, 
notwithstanding his very striking independence of mind, 
he remained always true to their teachings. For example, 
he learned from them how to make a “rapiarium”’, 
or collection of excerpts from diverse authors. The 


WESSEL GANSFORT 207 


present writer, as was said above, had the good fortune 
to find two copies of such “rapiaria’’’’, called “‘farrago’’, 
a term which Gansfort employed in naming his best 
known work, the “Farrago Rerum Theologicarum’”’. 
A considerable portion of his “rapiarium’’ must have 
been filled with extracts from Augustine and Bernard, 
which two writers were loved most by Groote’s follow- 
ers. Hence one may safely conclude that Gansfort was 
introduced to Augustine and Bernard by the Brethren 
of the Common Life. Moreover, his repeated visits to 
the Augustinian monastery of Mount St. Agnes and his 
intimate friendship with Thomas a Kempis left many 
indelible impressions upon his mind, both at the time of 
his early stay at Zwolle and between the years 1475 
and 1482. 

Gansfort’s acquaintance with Alexander Hegius, the 
celebrated rector at Deventer, was fruitful, as is shown 
by the following remark found in a letter addressed to 
Wessel by Hegius: “You ask to be informed about my 
tutoring. I have followed your counsel. For all learning 
is pernicious that is attended with loss of honesty””’. 
Considering the fact that the monks at Windesheim had 
been busily engaged in improving the “Vulgate”? and 
texts of the Church Fathers, one sees why Gansfort 
studied Greek and Hebrew shortly after his departure 
from Zwolle: in order that he might interpret correctly 
the meaning of certain dark passages in the translations. 
His disapproval of certain phases of scholasticism he 
probably had acquired also at Zwolle, inasmuch as the 
rector of the brethren had been very outspoken on this 
point. As might be expected of a mystic, he often pre- 
ferred Plato to Aristotle. Says Gansfort: “Now if my 
opinion, as opposed to Aristotle’s concerning the active 
intellect is true, — an opinion which is confirmed by 


208 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


many passages of Holy Writ, .......... we conclude 
that since it is always best to reduce things to their sim- 
plest elements, it is: not necessary to superadd some 
natural power to the intellect*’. One of his admirers 
wrote not long after his death: ‘Since Wessel greatly 
admired the teaching of Plato as being more divine and 
nearer to Christianity, and at times inveighed against 
Aristotle more sharply than the tender ears of scholastic 
doctors could bear, some called him ‘Master of contra- 
dictions’ ’’**. 

Gansfort was about the same sort of mystic that 
Groote and Zerbolt had been, which will chiefly explain 
his preference for Plato. He writes in one place: “There- 
fore what Aristotle calls the active intellect I call the light 
of God’s countenance. What he says concerning con- 
science and reason pleading for the best things, I ascribe, 
not to any power of the soul or to the natural state of 
the soul, but rather to the breath of life breathed into 
man by divine power, and to divine assistance not only 
for the will but also for intelligence”. Consequently 
Gansfort agreed with Groote’s followers that “when it 
is said that man was made in the image and likeness of 
God, this applies only to the inward man......... The 
image of God, the likeness of God, is not perfected un- 
less perfect union is attained, so that the soul holding 
fast to its prototype, the living God, becomes one in 
spirit with him’’*?. 

But Gansfort was a profound thinker, and built his 
theories upon the fundamental religious principles taught 
him by the Brethren of the Common Life. One of his 
new theories concerned purgatory, or the state of spirits 
after their departure from the body. He says: “The 
first human beings, Adam and Eve, who were placed 
in paradise, were far removed from the union of angels. 


WESSEL GANSFORT 200 


It was necessary for them to attain it by progressive 
steps, clinging to and loving God. In order that our first 
parents might of necessity hasten to this end they had— 
written in their hearts—the first commandment, on which 
hangs all the Law and the Prophets. They were as far 
removed from the image and likeness of God as they 
were unable to keep this commandment. I do not believe 
that if [Mary] Magdalene, loving the Lord Jesus as she 
did, had received a commandment from him not to taste 
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as Eve 
and Adam did from the Lord God, she could have been 
enticed to disobey the command by any subtlety of the 
serpent”. Hence, in Gansfort’s opinion, Adam and Eve 
in paradise were in need.of improvement, even before 
the fall; paradise, for them, was purgatory, or a place 
where their sinful minds were to be purged or purified. 
It follows, then, that purgatory is paradise, and for this 
reason Christ said to the murderer on the cross: “To-day 
thou shalt be with me in paradise’. 

This peculiar view of Gansfort would seem to be in 
conflict with the doctrine of the universal fall of man- 
kind caused by the sin of Adam and Eve. Not in Gans- 
fort’s opinion, however, and if he had been convicted of 
a deviation from the doctrine of the Church, he would 
immediately have relinquished his private opinions. It 
would have been difficult to prove that he was guilty of 
renouncing some of Groote’s personal beliefs. He did 
not fight monasticism, believing that many monks were 
leading useful lives; those who were a disgrace to monas- 
ticism had no right to be monks. And although he said 
a great deal more about the sacrament of communion 
than Groote, still his ideas differed but little from those 
of Groote. He seems to contradict himself sometimes, 
however, for he makes the following statement: “Neces- 


210 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


sarily it must be admitted that when he says, ‘Except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood’, we 
are to understand that it is an inward eating and drink- 
ing, that is, of the inner man......... He who thus eats 
already has the benefit of outward sacramental eating, . 
just as Paul, the first hermit, and very many after him 
had it even without the outward sacramental eating. To 
eat therefore is to remember, to esteem, to love’. But. 
a few pages further he writes: “This opinion of mine, 
in which I maintain that in commemorating Christ we 
not only have him present with us in the body to strength- 
en us, but that we even corporeally eat of him, is strongly 
confirmed by the words of Ambrose in his ‘De Verbis 
Dei’’”**. What Gansfort was trying to say seems to be 
this: If Christ made a certain statement, it has to 
be believed. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man 
and drink of his blood’, was Christ’s own word, “ye 
have not life in yourselves”. “But”, Gansfort reasoned, 
“to one who remembers his name, the Lord Jesus is truly 
present, not only in his deity, but also in his flesh and 
blood and entire humanity’*’. Only the inner man can 
eat of Christ’s body, which is his spirit, and the spirit 
cannot eat corporeally. Therefore, though still clinging 
to the generally accepted view, Gansfort was half spirit- 
ualizing the sacrament of communion. His view closely 
approached that held later by the Calvinists, namely, that 
of Christ being present only in a spiritual way. And 
quite naturally some one among his followers, a pupil of 
the Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands, 
would adopt that view, as will be seen presently. 
. On the question of predestination and of justification 
by faith Gansfort was true to the brethren’s teachings, 
but here also apparently contradicted himself, as in his 
view on the Lord’s Supper. He believed “with Plato that 


WESSEL GANSFORT 211 


nature is nothing else than the will of God acting with 
regularity, while a miracle is an extraordinary operation 
of the divine will’*®. He agreed with Groote that every 
man has a part of divinity within his breast, and that this 
spark of divinity unites him with God and may induce 
God to act on and with it, thus causing man to believe 
in Christ, his savior. Groote and Gansfort believed in a 
complete system of predestination, which to them ap- 
peared to be perfectly in harmony with the Scriptures: 
“Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings’’, quotes 
Gansfort from the Gospels, “and not one of them is 
forgotten before your Father in heaven’’? “Indeed, not 
a leaf falls from a tree without his will’’*’, he continues. 
“Therefore in the greater works of salvation believers 
cooperate with God in his operations. In this life by 
believing, fixing our gaze upon him, loving him, we may 
truly cooperate with God. And in this God makes us 
cooperate, because without him we can do nothing; but 
we can do all things in him, that strengthens us. For 
through him it is given us both to will and to do. In that 
cooperation on our part lies our sin or our piety’. 

Is there then any difference between the faith without 
works referred to by Paul and the works without which 
faith is dead, as mentioned by James? Not at all, ‘in 
Gansfort’s opinion®*. As for the reward of good works, 
Christ taught in the Beatitudes that every act of Christian 
service would bring its reward, which promise was re- 
peated by him in:the parable of the last judgment, where 
even a cup of cold water having been presented in love 
to some needy Christian is promised its reward. Not 
mere faith, therefore, but love would be required; a love 
without which faith could not exist*. 

Gansfort, accordingly, writes: ‘For when he bade us 
be pure, perfect, holy and worthy of God, what else does 


212 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


he seem to promise to the sinner who turns to him in 
faith but that, if he has but the desire to acquire virtue, 
all these blessed commands will be completely fulfilled,— 
if not in this life of trouble and misery, at any rate, 
sometime in the land of the living? Spiritual weakness - 
is sin, because we are enjoined to be brave in faith and 
resist the lion that goeth about, roaring, seeking whom 
he may devour. For it is a lifelong war to which God 
has appointed all who are in flesh, and not a mere 
battle, which is occasional and is only: for the hour. All 
weakness, however, such as folly, ignorance, lack of wis- 
dom, is sin. These compel one to go defenseless into 
battle. Hence it is to some degree clear why we ‘ought 
always to pray and not faint, to watch and be sober, to 


withstand stedfast in our faith’......... Faith is not 
the cause of our: justification, but its proof......... 
‘The just shall live by faith’......... Hence in unbe- 


lievers, their unbelief separates them from life. But ‘he 
that believeth on him hath eternal life’. Therefore our 
good works nourish and strengthen our faith, but do 
not make it alive, yet they strengthen the bond of life, 
namely our faith. For only Christ and the Spirit quicken 
us, and Christ’s sacrifice sanctifies us, and we are more 
strongly bound to this life by the stronger bond of our 
faith. But nothing strengthens this bond more than love; 
for love is strong as death. When indeed faith works 
through love, it is firm and the beginning of our con- 
Fidenteas firme. 54 2 By the works of the law shall 
no flesh be justified before him; even if one fulfil the 
chief commandment by his work, he will not because of 
this be righteous in God’s sight......... Hence it is 
not our faith—whether it be in Christ or in God who 
delivered Christ over to be a sacrifice—nor is it the 
sacrifice of Christ that constitutes our righteousness; 


WESSEL GANSFORT 213 


but it is the purpose of God, who accepteth the sacrifice 
of Christ, and who through Christ accepteth the sacrifice 
of Christians’**. Here then we have the doctrine of 
predestination in as clear and as logical a form, as closely 
allied to the teachings of Christ and the Apostles as any 
Calvinist could have made it. And as for the doctrine 
of justification by faith only, Gansfort was as much in 
harmony with Paul as Luther was in 1522, or any Pro- 
testant after him. 

Gansfort’s views on confession of sins and penance 
are also noteworthy. He admitted that “Peter and all 
the apostles had the power of binding and loosing on 
earth’. As was customary for all in those days, he called 
Peter the first pope, that is the first chief shepherd of 
Christ’s followers, and reasoned that, since Christ had 
placed the keys to heaven in Peter’s hands, these keys 
undoubtedly were the best ever possessed by mortal men. 
It had been generally asserted in Christendom that those 
keys had been handed down from Peter to the first 
bishop of Rome, from him again to the second bishop 
of Rome; then to the third, fourth, and fifth, and so on. 
These bishops of Rome, as history teaches us, came in 
due time to be recognized as the chiefs of all other 
bishops. Then those bishops of Rome were called popes, 
and Peter was counted the first of them, as he had died 
at Rome, and had received the appointment of principal 
shepherd from Christ. 

What was Gansfort’s interpretation of these facts? 
- It was in agreement with the views mentioned above, 
completely in accord with Groote’s teachings, and some- 
times even phrased almost literally in Groote’s own 
words. He writes: “I do not believe that Peter possessed 
the right either to loose whomsoever he pleased from the 
bond of Satan or to bind him therewith. For just as 


214 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


there is but one that baptizes in the Holy Spirit, so there 
is but one that binds and looses,—binds, I say, and looses 
with authority. For with what authority can the pope 
loose, when he does not know whether the person he has 
loosed has been loosed from the bond of Satan or not’’**? . 
This is exactly what Groote used to remark. Speaking 
about the duties of a priest in connection with the for- 
giveness of sins, Groote had said: “Of what use will it 
be to introduce an unworthy sinner to the inner circle 
of true believers, if this group of believers closes their 
doors upon him’’**? Gansfort argues in one of his letters: 
“You, therefore, cautiously take refuge behind a condi- 
tion as though behind an impregnable wall, declaring that 
only that will stand unshaken which the pope in matters 
of this sort shall decide, “f his key is not in error and 
Christ does not reject it’. What, I ask, is the meaning 
of this indispensable condition, ‘if his key is not in 
error’? What is this key of the kingdom of heaven? 
And what is the error of this key? You are obviously 
assuming a key that may err and at the same time be the 
effectual and lawful key of the kingdom of heaven. O 
dreadful kingdom, if its gates, bars, bolts, and keys are 
such that through them error, falsehood, and ignorance 
can creep stealthily within! The key, as Augustine ex- 
plains, is love diffused through the Holy Spirit in the 
hearts of the children of the kingdom. The Lord Jesus 
before his resurrection promised these two keys to 
Peter when he said: ‘I will give unto thee the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou salt loose 
on earth shall be loosed in heaven’. In like manner he 
presented these keys after the resurrection—not to one— 
but to all unitedly, when he breathed on them, saying: 
‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whose soever sins ye for- 
give, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye 


WESSEL GANSFORT 215 


retain, they are retained’. These two keys, in Augustine’s 
opinion, are never rejected by Christ, nor does it ever 
happen that they are in error. For he defines the keys 
of the kingdom as being: (1) love diffused through the 
Holy Spirit in the hearts of the children of God, and 
(2) the Holy Spirit. And he says that to loose and to 
bind is to receive into fellowship because of the similitude 
of love or to exclude from fellowship because of dis- 
similitude....... When the Lord Jesus promised Peter 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven so that whatsoever 
he bound on earth would be bound in heaven, he promised 
nothing else than the Holy Spirit, and through the Holy 
Spirit the diffusion of love in the heart of Peter’’**. 
Gansfort proceeds as follows: “Indulgences and excom- 
munications are on the same plane with the authority 
or power of the keys. The pope has no more power in 
reconciling souls to God than in alienating them from 
him. Indeed in excommunicating he has no power except, 
through an ecclesiastical court, publicly to exclude a per- 
son from the privileges of the Church. Similarly, in 
indulgences he can only free a person from the bond of 
the canons and from censure......... In absolution 
before a court of penance, special considerations must be 
given to the fact that it is not the priest that binds the 
chain by which the sinner is held. For it is sin alone 
that separates the sinner from God. Nevertheless by 
this I do not mean that confession ought not to be made 
when it can be done to advantage, that is, so that those 
who are quickened and see may have a wider vision’’*®. 
In all this Gansfort is again reiterating the doctrines of 
his teachers, adding from time to time his own interpre- 
tation. He agrees with Groote that the sacrament of 
confession and penance was merely instituted to aid be- 
lievers in their struggle against sin. Zerbolt had clearly 


216 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


expressed the views of his friends in his “Treatise on 
the Common Life”, where he ifisisted that the Brethren 
of the Common Life had a perfect right to confess their 
sins to each other. One could also confess his sins to a 
priest; that was confessing sacramentally, Groote and 
Zerbolt had explained. But all the. priest could do was 
to state that the person in question had sinned, was 
determined to sin no more, and that for this reason his 
sins were forgiven. He could merely preach, exhort, and 
be a witness that the Holy Spirit, working in his heart, 
also was operating in the sinner’s inner self*. 

Even Groote’s views on the authority of the pope and 
of the clergy are repeated in Gansfort’s writings. The 
pope was bound to have his convictions, Gansfort reason- 
ed, just as all Christians had theirs. If the pope found 
the belief of some other man to be more in harmony 
with the gospel than his own, he should concur in the 
former. “So when Peter did not walk uprightly according 
to the truth of the gospel, he was obliged to believe Paul, 
not because it was Paul, but because Paul walked. more 
uprightly according to the truth of the. gospel’. Laymen 
and the lower clergy only had to obey their superiors in 
the Church under certain conditions, that is, when these 
superiors were more faithfully obeying Christ’s com- 
mandments than they themselves. The more responsible 
the position one was occupying in the Church, the better 
follower of Christ one ought to be. To deny that would 
be so blasphemous, says Gansfort, “that it is actually 
more pernicious than any heresy whatever”. Peter was 
allowed by God to err, he continues, in order that people 
may know “what to do with salt that has lost its savor’’*’. 

Gansfort, following Groote’s example, compared the 
impious clergy of his time with the Pharisees of old, 
who used to ask- why Christ allowed his disciples. to 


WESSEL GANSFORT 217 


transgress the laws of the elders. Gansfort, in accord 
with this, protested against the sale of benefices by the 
higher clergy for personal gain, and for other reasons: 
“Nor may even the pope give them away or sell them. 
And when he commits God’s interests in remote provinces 
to mere fortune as it were — as if he had no concern 
for them — then alas, what evils ensue, — as one cannot 
but see about him’**! No wonder that when Gansfort 
had been arguing one day with a certain Rabineus at 
Angers, the latter had to admit: “If these things are so, 
our entire foundation is false’’*®. And that is exactly 
what many scholars and clerics must have said about 
Groote’s views. The state of affairs witnessed by Groote 
and Gansfort was leading to a general catastrophe. A 
reformation was needed; and the Yssel country was de- 
manding one, but Rome paid no heed; no one among 
Groote’s followers had ever broken openly with Rome. 


Iil 


Luther was wondering in 1522 why Gansfort had 
remained so little known. “Possibly”, he mused, “it was 
because he lived free from blood and war, in which 
particular alone he differs from me’. There is a great 
deal of truth in this remark of Luther’s. He had himself 
challenged Rome to a fight out in the open, in full gaze 
of the public. That challenge had focused the attention 
of all Christendom, upon his activities. Gansfort, on the 
other hand, although he had often debated with noted 
scholars at Paris and elsewhere about the leading issues 
in their time, always avoided the clash of battle. Also, 
he had been protected by the bishop of Utrecht, who 
stood ready to shield him from any unpleasant attack, 
for he needed Gansfort’s services as physician. Again, 


218 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


his extraordinary learning enabled him to silence every 
one who dared to argue with him. As appears from one 
of his letters, when he dreaded an assault from the papal 
inquisitors, he would. prepare himself so thoroughly for 
their approach that he would “pass through their persecu- 
tions as over a shallow ford and with light step’’®’. 

Gansfort loved the quiet and privacy of his study. He 
does speak of the abuses in the Church, and he calls the 
sale of indulgences an abuse’; but we never hear of his 
addressing a crowd of common people to awaken them 
to the need of a reformation; we never find him giving 
them books to read, translating parts of the Scriptures 
for them, or instructing their boys, except for a short 
time at Zwolle. Though he was ready to suffer for the 
faith, as he said, he never called the clergy together at 
Utrecht, as Groote had done, to tell them their short- 
comings. He bewailed the sad state of affairs in the 
Church, but spoke of it only in private circles. How 
different it had been with Groote, Cele, and Zerbolt, and 
how different it was to be with Luther, Melanchton, and 
Calvin! 

That was a significant comparison Luther made be- 
tween his beliefs and those of the “learned Frisian from 
Groningen”. How had he become acquainted with the 
writings of Wessel Gansfort? It had happened that some 
of Gansfort’s writings had been given in charge of a 
certain Cornelius Henrixs Hoen, a former pupil of the 
school conducted by the Brethren of the Common Life 
at Utrecht. Hoen had been greatly impressed by Gans- 
fort’s treatise on the sacrament of communion, or the 
eucharist. He noticed how far Gansfort had gone in 
spiritualizing the eating of Christ’s flesh, and drew the 
conclusion that the word is, in “This is my body”, 
should be interpreted as signifies; just as it is interpreted 


WESSEL GANSFORT 219 


in “I am the door, the vine, the way’. He discussed this 
point with Hinne Rode, rector of the school of the 
brethren at Utrecht. Rode fully agreed with him, and it 
was decided that he (Rode) should show Gansfort’s work 
to Luther, together with a treatise prepared by Hoen on 
the eucharist. Early in the year 1521 Rode appeared in 
Wittenberg. Luther read Gansfort’s works with whole- 
hearted approval, but did not approve of Hoen’s treatise. 
Rode also asked the great Reformer to have Gansfort’s 
works printed. What reply he got is not known, but 
Luther could not have attended to their publication, as 
he had to leave for Worms and later for the Wartburg. 
In August, 1522, however, an edition appeared of some 
of Gansfort’s letters with Luther’s letter of approbation 
as a sort of preface. In the same year these same letters 
were published at Basel, together with Gansfort’s “Far- 
rago’’, and introduced again with Luther’s letter, written 
on the thirtieth of July, 1522, very probably after Luther 
had familiarized himself with the contents of the 
“Farrago’’”*,: 

Now the question rises, What did Luther mean in 
saying that if he had read Wessel sooner, his enemies 
might have accused him of having copied from Gansfort? 
The two latest authorities on Gansfort’* suggest that 
Luther was feeling lonesome at that time in his singular 
position, and a little afraid of the terrible consequences 
of his drastic step, so that he was glad to discover one 
eminent scholar at least who had entertained views 
similar to his. These two authorities also bring forward 
a number of questions on which Gansfort and Luther 
disagreed. 

A problem of this kind should lead scholars to study 
very carefully the formation of Luther’s views from, say, 
1495 till 1522. The question is not what Luther believed 


220 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


in 1525 or 1530, but what was in his mind when he sat 
down to read Gansfort’s works. Luther speaks of the 
fact that Gansfort and he express the same thoughts 
almost in the same words, referring to the works he had 
written between 1517 and 1521. The question now shifts 
to this: Where had he found the ideas for those works? 
Were they all his own, or did he owe them to former 
writers? Luther says himself that at Magdeburg he 
“went to school with the Brethren of the Common 
Life”**. In many places, as at Deventer, Zwolle, and ~ 
Minster, the Brethren of the Common Life did not 
conduct schools of their own, for there they found good. 
schools already in existence, or schools that could easily 
be reformed. As time went on, they became more and 
more interested in education, and supplied more and more 
teachers. In Utrecht, Groningen, and Liége they even 
founded schools of their own; also at Rostock, Cassel, 
Ghent, and Nijmegen. According to Luther, they did the 
same at Magdeburg, where he lived in 1497. Through 
this school he came in contact with the ideas and the 
ideals of Groote, Radewijns, and Zerbolt, which had 
helped to mould the mind of Gansfort also. 

It is likely that Luther read some works of Gerard 
Groote, in manuscript form, many of which can still be 
found in practically all large European libraries, even 
distant ones like those at Rome, Vienna, and Innsbruck®®. 
The National Library at Berlin now has a copy of some 
of Groote’s works which formerly belonged to a monas- 
tery at Erfurt’. In 1515 or 1516 Luther himself makes 
the enlightening remark: “Nowhere have I found such a 
clear explanation of original sin as in the treatise of 
Gerard Groote, ‘Blessed is the man’’’**. It is probable 
that Luther, became acquainted with some monks who 
lived in the many monasteries in Saxony reformed by 


WESSEL GANSFORT 2a1 


the missionaries from Windesheim, for these monks were 
spreading broadcast the mystical productions of the men 
of Deventer and Windesheim. Besides, after 1498 Luther 
can hardly have failed to meet some of the boys who had 
been taught with him at Magdeburg and to discuss 
ideas that they had absorbed in this school from the 
Brethren of the Common Life. The brethren were 
accustomed to preach to the people on holidays and Sun- 
days. Had Luther heard some of their sermons? 
Might he not, like Thomas a Kempis and Wessel Gans- 
fort, have become the personal friend of at least one 
member of Groote’s new brotherhood? Is it likely that 
Luther had not read the “Imitation of Christ” before 
1522? He had read Zerbolt’s “Spiritual Ascensions”’ 
before 1516°°, also the “Rosary of Spiritual Exercises” 
by John Mombaer, a monk of the monastery on Mount 
St. Agnes near Zwolle®. Hence the “Imitation”, the 
most popular book of the time, cannot have escaped his 
attention. 

Now there are certain classes of people who cannot see 
any similarity in thought between the Luther of the year 
1520 and the ideals of Groote’s followers, just as many 
others cannot understand how Luther ever dared to 
appeal to the Scriptures, he having deviated so far from 
their precepts, as they claim. The same is true of many 
Catholics and Protestants who keep on arguing about 
Wessel Gansfort, neither being able or willing to under- 
stand the man’s ideas; wherefore an American author 
wrote a few years ago: “The contrary conclusions reached 
by modern Catholic and Protestant scholars as to the 
proper classification of Wessel indicate how much more 
influential partisan prejudice is than the much vaunted 
‘scientific method’ claimed by both parties’. 

We begin now to see what Luther meant when he made 


222 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


that much disputed statement about Gansfort, that if he 
had read him sooner, his enemies might accuse him of 
having copied from Gansfort. In 1522 Luther was fight- 
ing the sale of indulgences, which both he and Gansfort 
called an abuse. He was also discussing the question of 
the authority of the Scriptures as compared with that 
of all popes and other members of the hierarchy of the 
Church, and now he saw that on this question also he 
agreed with Gansfort. Says Gansfort: “You admonish 
me in matters of this sort to regard the authority of the 
pope, not merely as a substitute for reason, but as superior 
to it! What, I ask, am I to regard as reason in these 
matters? Is it not the Holy Scriptures? Do you wish 
to put the authority of the pope above the Holy Scrip- 
tures’? 

The familiar story of Luther’s conversion shows an- 
other important point of agreement between him and 
Gansfort. Luther was struck by the thought, that “The 
just shall live by faith”, but he was by no means the first 
to appreciate the significance of this text. Groote had 
already quoted it, not from Paul but from the Old Testa- 
ment®, and Gansfort quoted it from Paul. Gansfort had 
added this observation: ‘“Whoever believes that he shall 
be justified by his own works does not know what 
righteousness is. For to be righteous is to give to every- 
one his due, but who has ever been able to render his full 
duty to God or indeed to man? A person who imagines 
that he has, possesses no conception of the magnitude of 
the blessedness of the future, to which no works of his 
can ever entitle him’**. When Luther read this passage 
in Gansfort’s works, how could he have helped being 
reminded of the assertions that he had made himself? 
Any one reading carefully some of the chapters of the 
“Imitation of Christ’? might easily have accepted the 


WESSEL GANSFORT 223 


same conclusion. ‘Without this [Grace]’’, reads chapter 
LV of book III, “what am I but a withered piece of 
wood, and an unprofitable branch only meet to be cast 
away? Let thy Grace therefore, O Lord, always prevent 
and follow me, and make me to be continually given to 
good works, through thy Son Jesus Christ’. Man cannot 
accept Christ in pure faith of his own free will, but is 
dependent on Grace, or the Holy Spirit, to give him 
power. Then he will of necessity perform good works, 
which are the visible fruits of faith. 

Critics have said that Luther believed in predestination, 
but Gansfort in the doctrine of “free will’®°. This is 
not true. Gansfort, Thomas a Kempis, and Luther all 
believed in predestination, holding that man cannot per- 
form one good work on his own initiative. The doctrine 
of free will teaches that man can accept or reject Christ 
as he pleases, and this was not taught by Groote’s follow- 
ers. They asked, Which human brain can comprehend 
the powers of an omnipotent God? If not one hair fall 
from one’s ‘head without God’s will, how can anyone do 
anything of his own will, although he seems to have a 
free will? The answer to this puzzling question is thus 
expressed in the “Imitation of Christ”: “My son, beware 
thou dispute not of high matters, nor of the secret judg- 
ments of God, why this man is so left, and that man 
taken into such favor......... These things are beyond 
all reach of man’s faculties, neither is it in the power of 
any reason or disputation to search out the judgments of 
God’’**. And Gansfort remarks: ‘Shrouded in dense 
darkness and hidden deep from the sight of all are the 
judgments of God which are to be revealed in that clear 
day of the last judgment”. He adds: “ ‘He that believeth 
on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater 
works than these shall he do’. But he shall do them in 


224 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


dependence upon God’s action; for apart from him we 
can do nothing’’®’. 

One wonders, with Luther, why Gansfort and the 
movement he represented have remained so little known. 
The very name “Devotio Moderna” is practically un- 
known in France, England, and America. In Germany, 
where the name is sometimes mentioned, one hears much 
more about Hus and Wycliff, in connection with Luther’s 
experiences from 1517-1521, than about the whole move- 
ment originated by Groote. The reason is not far to 
seek: as Luther himself intimated, none of Groote’s 
followers were “men of blood and war”. They were 
quite as anxious for a reform as he was, but led the 
clergy and the people to correct with love all the abuses 
in the Church. They seldom mentioned the sale of in- 
dulgences; they took no part in any abuses, but merely 
pointed to the life of Christ as a model. They cared not 
for fame or honor, and refused to discuss in public the 
motes in their neighbors’ eyes. Desiring to remain un- 
known, they were left unknown, but that did not weaken 
their influence. If we compare their work with that of 
Hus and Wycliff, for example, we see that the latter 
attracted considerable attention during their lifetime, 
because they broke openly with Rome. And yet they had 
not said anything more revolutionary than Gansfort. 
Their teachings as such did not give them publicity. In 
discussing the influence of Wycliff and Hus, one natur-_ 
ally inquires what kind of organized society or group of © 
followers they formed, and whether they founded an 
institution as Groote did; whether any of their disciples 
wrote a work like the “Imitation of Christ’; and whether 
their followers reformed schools or founded new ones, 
and reformed hundreds of monasteries, as did those of 
Groote and Cele. 


WESSEL GANSFORT 225 


Ass for the contact of Luther with the “New Devo- 
tion’, we know that at Eisleben a school was reformed 
after the model of those at Deventer and Zwolle®*. That 
was in Luther’s native Saxony. We know also that 
Luther studied at Erfurt the text-books of Gabriel Biel, 
who is said to have been acquainted with Gansfort and 
later became rector of the Brethren of the Common Life 
at’ Butzbach near Mainz®. Last, but not least, we know 
that Luther himself spent nearly a year with the brethren 
at Magdeburg; so wherever he went he was surrounded 
by the invisible influences of the great movement from 
the Yssel country. At Erfurt, for example, all the 
monasteries needing reform had been placed in charge of 
John Busch, the missionary from Windesheim. Still 
most modern authors analyze the views Luther enter- 
tained between 1517 and 1521 as does one English writer 
who says: “On May 16, 1518, he can preach that the real 
communion of the Church is invisible, deducing the 
consequences that excommunication cannot cut one off 
from it, and nothing but sin can affect it. This idea of the 
Invisible Church boasts an honorable pedigree, running 
back to Hus, Wycliff, and to St. Austine [Augustine] 
himself”’®. The fact is, that Luther did not read Hus 
until 1519! 

Many writers do not know that when Luther read 
Gansfort he came upon the following: “How shall he 
[the pope] judge the faith of a man whose language he 
is not acquainted with? Hence we reach the conclusion 
that the Holy Spirit has kept for himself the task of 
encouraging, quickening, preserving, and increasing the 
unity of the Church. He has not left it to a Roman 
pontiff who often pays no attention to it. We ought to 
acknowledge one Catholic Church, yet to acknowledge 
its unity as the unity of the faith and of the Head, the 


226 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


unity of the corner-stone, not the unity of its director, 
Peter, or his successor. For what could Peter in Italy do 
for those in India endangered by temptation or persecu- 
tion, except pray for them, even though he had greater 
power than his successors?........ Hence it is only the 
internal unity of its one essential Head that is implied 
in the words of the Apostles’ Creed’. Luther also read 
this: “There is a double priesthood: the one due to 
rank, and so sacramental; the other inherent in our ~ 
rational nature, and so common to all men. The second 
is sufficient without the first. The first without the 
second involves guilt. The second imparts grace. Through 
the second Anthony ranked above many bishops, and a 
tanner above Anthony’’”. 

This doctrine of the universal priesthood of all believ- 
ers became one of the chief tenets of Luther and the 
Protestant faith, the other two being justification by 
faith and the supreme authority of the Scriptures. Luther 
may well have been surprised to find Gansfort so often 
voicing the same thoughts as he. If so, we should study 
Luther’s relationship with the Brethren of the Common 
Life, — a relationship so complex and still so significant 
that it will have to be discussed more fully in a following 
chapter®. 


IV 


Our acquaintance with Gansfort’s life not only throws 
new light on some of Luther’s views, but it may also 
_assist us in understanding Erasmus’ character, especially 
his attitude toward Luther from 1517-1522. Erasmus 
spent twelve years with the brethren, that is, nine years 
at Deventer, and three at ’s-Hertogenbosch™. Hence the 
background for the mental life of Erasmus is not to be 


WESSEL GANSFORT 227 


sought in the monastery of Adwert, as some writers 
think”, but among the Brethren of the Common Life at 
Deventer and Zwolle. Adwert served merely as a sort 
of meeting-ground for the chief leaders of humanism 
in the Netherlands, and only for a short period. It did 
not send half a dozen boys in all to the universities”, and 
none of its monks produced any writings worth noting. 
Gansfort even chided the monks of Adwert for reading 
books filled with falsehoods, whereupon they turned to 
more useful reading matter’. If it had not been for the 
congenial views of Abbot Henry van Rees, a great 
humanist, he would undoubtedly have visited the monas- 
tery very seldom. Adwert did not produce either great 
_ mystics or great humanists. At Zwolle and Deventer, on 
the other hand, were educated Rudolph von Langen, 
Alexander Hegius, Louis Dringenberg, Erasmus, Mutian 
Rufus, Herman von dem Busche, Herman Torrentinus, 
John Oostendorp, Gerard Listrius, and a host of other 
memorable scholars. During the closing years of the 
fifteenth century Deventer was the best and most famous 
town in Northern Europe for the pursuit of elementary 
-and secondary education. In general the Brethren of the 
Common Life were, either directly or indirectly, the 
teachers of practically all the best scholars in German 
lands. How much France owed to them will be shown 
in the next chapter. They, more than any other discover- 
able agency, gave to the rise of the new learning North 
of the Alps its religious coloring. 

Erasmus was a child of the “New Devotion’, and 
could no more shake the ideals of Groote and Gansfort 
from his mind than he could change the color of his skin. 
Also there were times when he was not sorry that he had 
those ideas, although he probably never quite appreciated 
the source from which he had received them™’. Like 


228 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Groote, he attacked energetically the bad monks of his 
time, and fought the abuses in the Church. He eagerly 
studied the Scriptures and the Fathers in the original 
texts, and corrected them. It is generally supposed that 
he received his ideals from Italy, but it is far more 
likely that he received it from Groote’s followers. The 
monks at Windesheim had corrected the texts of the 
Bible and of the Fathers, and Gansfort had studied Greek 
and Hebrew for the purpose of getting a better under- 
standing of them. Besides, the constitutions: of the 
brethren-houses insisted on pure texts, “lest one’s con- 
science might be hurt by some improper version”’’. It 
was Gansfort who urged Agricola to study Hebrew, and 
it was he who persuaded this wandering Bohemian to 
devote a considerable share of his leisure time to the study 
of the Scriptures®. Now, Erasmus distinguished himself 
by his work on the Church Fathers. He was the first to 
find the pure humanity and the sublime divinity of the 
Ancients in Christianity. The love-ethics of the Gospel, 
especially of the Sermon on the Mount, loosed’ from 
ascetic idealism and from that sort of piety which flees 
the world, was to Erasmus the purest expression of the 
humanity expressed in the classics**. While many others 
were concentrating their whole attention on the classics 
of pagan Greece and Rome, Erasmus extended_ the 
services of humanism to a more liberal study of the Bible 
and the Fathers. 

One English scholar says it was Colet who urged 
Erasmus in 1499 “to turn his attention to theology, and 
to help him in breaking through the web of dialectical 
sophistry that had been woven round it’’*’. Many other 
writers have shared this view, which they could not have 
done had they been acquainted with the history of the 
“New Devotion”. When a boy, Erasmus loved Seneca 


WESSEL GANSFORT 220 


better than Cicero, because the Brethren of the Common 
Life, his teachers at Deventer, had learned from Groote 
to yalue practical advice on moral questions above mere 
rhetoric®®. It was the brethren, not Colet, who led him 
to study Paul and Augustine, the authors whom they had 
studied long before Colet appeared in the field. They 
also aroused in him an interest in Jerome, to whom their 
house at Deventer was dedicated, and it might be noted 
here that in their original constitution the house was 
dedicated to Paul, something which has thus far escaped 
the attention of modern scholars. The brethren taught 
him to regard the chief element in Christianity as faith 
working through love, a return to the faith taught by 
Christ himself. That Erasmus knew Gansfort is plain 
from his own remark: “Doctor Wessel has much in 
common with Luther, but how much more modestly and 
like Christ did he propagate his ideas than most of those 
[Lutherans] at Strasbourg’’**. Erasmus’ own thinking 
was colored with the opinions of Wessel Gansfort: he 
spiritualized the meaning of purgatory in imitation of 
Gansfort**, and he also spiritualized the Eucharist. It 
was from him that Zwingli derived new views on 
Christ’s spiritual presence in the Eucharist, as Zwingli 
told Melanchton afterwards”. 

Erasmus was likewise active in the monastic reforms 
introduced into France by the Windesheim Congregation. 
In 1497, or two years before he met Colet, he was in- 
timately acquainted in Paris with John Mombaer, who 
had come to France to introduce monastic reform among 
the Augustinian monks in and near Paris®*’. Mombaer 
had spent several years under the same roof with Thomas 
a Kempis at Mount St. Agnes, and also wrote important 
religious books. One of these is the “Rosary of Spiritual 
Exercises”, about which more will be said in the next 


230 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


chapter. Erasmus undoubtedly read that mystical pro- 
duction. But Mombaer wrote another work, called 
~‘Venatorium Sanctorum Ordinis Canonici’”’, in which he 
delineates the history and excellence of the Augustinian 
order. A copy of this highly interesting work is still 
extant, in Ms. no. 14662 of the “Bibliothéque Nationale” 
at Paris. In this Mombaer tries to prove that the order 
of the Canons Regular was instituted by the Apostles, 
reformed by Pope Urban, reinstated by Augustine, and 
protected by Gregory the Great**; and he gives a brief 
account of the progress of the order from the seventh 
till the fifteenth century*’. “Then”, he continues, “that 
glorious Congregation of Windesheim was founded. It 
- began as a small flock, but soon gathered scores of 
monasteries within its fold. As a result of this great 
movement Pope Eugene IV reformed the monasteries in 
Saxony through Nicholas Cusa, and Pope Martin V did 
the same in Italy’’®’. 

There is one other fact about Erasmus’ life that de- 
serves our attention here. It is his very unusual. spirit 
of toleration and his constant efforts to preserve peace. 
Although he instinctively felt that Luther was the direct 
cause of his own downfall, he nevertheless sought to 
befriend the German Reformer as long as he could. This 
attitude seems natural in a follower of Gansfort. But 
there was a limit beyond which the Brethren of the Com- 
mon Life would not go. Groote silenced three different 
theologians whom he considered heretics. Gansfort and 
Erasmus would have judged them heretics also, for they 
taught the doctrines of the Free Spirits, who attempted 
to overthrow all moral laws and regulations. If they 
had been allowed to spread in the Yssel country, they 
would have increased vice a thousand fold. Groote was 
so anxious to preserve the unity of the Church that he 


WESSEL GANSFORT 231 


had no rest till he had silenced these three men. There- 
after we hear no more of that sort of preachers endeavor- 
ing to lead Groote’s disciples astray. The “New Devo- 
tion” gained hundreds of new adherents each year, and 
now the brethren seldom met with opposition from men 
like the “Free Spirits’. On the other hand, with the 
rise of this new brotherhood, opposition arose in very 
different quarters. The mendicants, particularly the 
Dominicans, were jealous of the amazing growth of the 
new institution. Here was a brotherhood very much like 
a monastic order, but that exacted no vows. Its members 
taught young and old alike, preached in the language of 
the people, reformed schools directly and indirectly, and 
even translated parts of the Bible into the vernacular. 
Groote himself had found it necessary to defend them at 
Deventer; Brinckerinck had done the same, and Zerbolt. 
So did Gerson and Ailly at the Council of Constance. 
Then there had been the constant menace of encroaching 
monasticism. One day the rector of the house at Deven- 
ter even had to reprove the prior of Windesheim for 
trying to tear one more house away from his fold. And 
in various treatises the Brethren of the Common Life 
explained their right to exist. One.of these was the 
“Treatise on the Common Life”, by Gerard Zerbolt; 
another was a treatise, though in a much more con- 
densed form, by Gabriel Biel, rector of the house at 
Butzbach near Mainz®’. The brethren were always eager 
to help reform monasteries, to keep all things as they 
were, provided the abuses were done away with. Because 
they had often been persecuted themselves, though in a 
mild form, they had begun to look with sorrow on the 
spirit of intolerance which was soon to overwhelm all 
Christendom. 

How then would one expect Gansfort and Erasmus 


232 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


to regard this new wave of intolerance? Gansfort had 
often been suspected of heresy, as he himself states; so 
had Erasmus. Both resented and ridiculed the attacks 
on their way of preaching reform. Gansfort had success- 
fully maintained himself always; so would Erasmus, 
though the Church supported him unwillingly. Gansfort 
had a friend named John of Wesel, — a man strongly 
influenced by Groote’s teachings, who had been advocat- 
ing the need of reform in a very haphazard way, as one 
gathers from the letter previously quoted**. Though he 
had probably gone no farther than Gansfort, he was 
prosecuted, and condemned to death. Erasmus had a 
friend, named Martin Luther, a former pupil of the 
Brethren of the Common Life, who had uttered opinions 
‘nuch akin to those entertained by himself. Luther had 
spoken a little rashly; he had cared more about telling 
he truth than about the way he told it and about 
the results of telling it, and naturally he was excom- 
municated. - 
Gansfort and Erasmus showed the same toleration 
in these cases. Says Gansfort: “From my most faith- 
ful friends I learn that he has been convicted to 
die by fire. I am not so much surprised at his being 
condemned to the fire; but I think the methods pursued 
by his judges ought to be laughed to scorn......... 
Besides, from the same friends I learn that as soon as 
the inquisitor has disposed of him, he will descend with 
an investigation upon me. And in this case, although I 
do not fear the proceedings in the least, still I should 
have to endure disquietude, suspicion, expense, trouble, 
and — more than that — even calumny; especially from 
the Abbot of the Old Mount and from some Doctors of 
Cologne, whose hatred or rather whose envy you may 
readily guess from your own misfortunes; — I speak 


WESSEL GANSFORT 233 


to one who has had experience with them......... Iam 
looking for as speedy a reply as possible from you with 
an account of what happened to you in a similar affair 
and what you would advise me to do, for fear that some 
sudden attack may confound me in my defenselessness 
and ignorance of court trials. I do not fear anything 
that I may have to undergo for the purity of the faith, 
if only there be no calumny”. 

Erasmus wrote in 1518 that Luther ought to bring no 
radical changes, that he should beware of sowing sedition, 
and that moderation was needed, and much of it. On 
the nineteenth of October, 1519, Erasmus still continued 
in the same strain, commenting that Luther should not 
“be suppressed, but rather brought to a right frame of 
mind”. Was not Luther right, he asked, in condemning 
the sale of indulgences, and why should he not call 
attention to the abuses at Rome? He admitted that Luther 
had spoken rashly, and that rashness was a mistake, but 
judged Luther right in protesting that the works of 
Thomas Aquinas were wrongly placed above the Gospel. 
“In former days’, writes he, “a heretic was listened to 
with respect; he was acquitted if he gave satisfaction, 
he was convicted if he persisted. The severest punish- 
ment was not to be admitted to the communion of the 
Catholic Church. Now the charge of heresy is quite 
another thing, and yet on any frivolous pretext whatever 
they have this charge ready on their lips, ‘It is heresy’. 
Formerly that man was considered a heretic who dis- 
sented from Evangelical teaching and from the article | 
of faith, or from those which had equal authority with 
eRe ae 53). Whatever they do not like, whatever they 
do not understand is heresy; to know Greek is heresy; 
to do other than they is heresy’. 

This letter reminds us of one by Gansfort in answer 


234 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


to Dr. Jacob Hoeck, who had accused him of heresy: 
“To my mind the famous St. Jerome was as holy in 
argument and example as he was orthodox and catholic 
in his views. Yet, when he fell into a great and danger- 
ous error that undermined the authority of all Canonical 
Scripture and was therefore worse than the error of 
Arius or Sabellius, he did not yield to the admonition 
of Augustine, but wrote a reply in defense of his opinion 
and in opposition to Augustine. Perhaps you will say 
it does not follow that there is any truce to be granted 
to-day. I do not dispute that. Nevertheless the precedent 
that was established is sufficient for my position. If 
indeed his scrupulous anxiety in searching into the truth, 
since he was sincere, defended St. Jerome from heresy, 
I do not believe that anyone is a heretic who with solici- 
tude seeks the truth, and on finding it accepts it with 
equal promptness’’**. By this Gansfort meant to say that 
anybody had a right to keep his own opinions so long 
as no one could prove them to be wrong to him; but 
as soon as he was convinced that they were false or 
incorrect, he would be obliged to relinquish them. No 
one was a heretic in Gansfort’s opinion who, like Jerome 
in that one case, could not understand his opponent to 
be right and himself to be wrong. Jerome was wrong 
to be sure, and saw his mistake afterwards. But he was 
no heretic, for who would dare to call Jerome a heretic? 
Hence there were not quite so many heretics as most 
people supposed. 

On April 14, 1519, Erasmus wrote of Luther: “No 
one has shown his error or refuted him, and yet they 
call him a heretic’. Erasmus wanted him to be tried by 
competent and impartial judges. “Luther has admirable 
insight into the Gospel’’**’, he asserted. He had asked 
for a discussion and only received insult; his thoughts 


WESSEL GANSFORT 235 


were distorted, said Erasmus, and his writings falsified. 
On March 25, 1520, Erasmus wrote: “The Roman 
Church I know, which I think does not differ from the 
Catholic. Death will not part me from it unless the 
Church openly departs from Christ. I always abhor 
sedition, and I would that Luther and the Germans ab- 
horred it equally....... I feared always that revolution 
would be the end, and I would have done more had I 
not been afraid that I might be found fighting against 
the Spirit of Christ’’®®. But Erasmus did not forsake 
the ideals of toleration. If he had, he would have received 
a bishopric. What did he say when he was asked to 
take a definite stand in November, 1520? ‘Luther is so 
great that I shall not write against him. He is so great 
that I do not understand him: his value is such that I 
derive more instruction from a single small page of his 
than from the whole of St. Thomas’’®’. He was exag- 
gerating of course, but the attitude expressed in his reply 
is magnanimous. It is not the word of a coward, but it 
reveals a man who passionately abhorred the spirit of 
intolerance which was now breaking loose in its utmost . 
fury. No wonder that Erasmus was abused and ridiculed 
by friend and foe alike. Is he understood even to-day? 


CHAPTER VII 
THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 


The character and history of the Christian Renaissance 
in France differs in many respects from that of the same 
movement in Germany. In Germany, both the Brethren 
of the Common Life and the Windesheim Congregation 
had a house, by 1400, that was destined in turn to found 
or reform several others. In France not a single brethren- 
house was ever erected, and the first missionary from the 
Windesheim Congregation arrived in 1496. In Germany 
one meets soon after 1400 with a large number of im- 
portant institutions, whereas in France Paris became and 
remained the one chief centre of the Christian Renais- 
sance. Two men only were to determine the character 
of this great movement in France: John Standonck and 
John Mombaer, or Mauburn, both natives of Brabant, 
in the present kingdom of Belgium. They arrived very 
late upon the stage of “prereform’’, that is, the reforms 
attempted before the Reformation. But in spite of their 
late arrival they.were to play a larger part in the history 
of the Christian church in France than any apostle of 
the Christian Renaissance had ever played in Germany. 


I 


John Standonck was born at Mechlin about the year 
1450. After attending school for a few years in his 
native town, he went to Gouda, in Holland, where the 
Brethren of the Common Life had founded a boarding 

236 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE — 237 


school within their own building. Here the boy was 
given a scholarship. All his physical and mental needs 
were provided for by the pious brethren*. Standonck 
belonged to the “‘scolares pauperes’’, or poor school boys, 
who were educated entirely at the expense of the new 
brotherhood. Often the brethren received donations from 
friends to defray part of the expenses of their dormitories 
or boarding schools, as happened at Deventer®. This may 
also have been the case at Gouda. The sources inform us, 
however, that Gouda was but a comparatively small town, 
and that the brothers had very limited means of subsis- 
tence. Not until the year 1465 would the houses at 
Deventer and Zwolle recognize the one at Gouda officially 
as a member of the brotherhood’. The institution on the 
“Agnietenberg”’, or Mount St. Agnes, near Zwolle, had 
been a complete failure, for the brethren had found so 
few people there, and particularly few school boys*. Their 
business was to educate school boys in the “fear and love 
of the Lord’, and to preach to the people. This they 
could not doin small towns. But the brothers at Gouda 
struggled along somehow, ignoring as much as possible 
their shabby clothes and empty stomachs. Some of the 
men were no doubt priding themselves on their poverty 
— not so much because it was any longer the habit among 
Groote’s disciples to choose voluntary poverty and regard 
it-a great blessing, for it simply was not’, but they 
had to make the best of it. 

At Gouda Standonck spent all his time with the 
Brethren of the Common Life. It would have been better 
for him perhaps could he have lived in one of the 
dormitories at Zwolle, as Gansfort did, for the brethren 
at Zwolle had much more money than their friends at 
Gouda. He undoubtedly had to suffer with the elder 
inmates of the house, and probably was taught to look 


238 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


upon poverty as a blessing in disguise. Soon he was 
taught to copy religious writings — the works of Groote 
and Zerbolt perhaps, and certainly those of Augustine 
and Bernard. He became one of the best students at 
Gouda, and the seeds of the “New Devotion” found.a 
very fertile soil in his young heart®. They were destined 
to produce an abundant harvest at Paris. 

On the 27th of November, 1469, Standonck matricu- 
lated at Louvain’, and not long thereafter we find him 
at Paris. He had made his way to the Augustinian 
monastery of Ste. Geneviéve, where he worked for his 


board. About the year 1475 he received a master’s degree, — 


and thereupon repaired to the ruined college of Montaigu 
to study theology. On May 30, 1483, the direction of 
the old college was entrusted to his care, while in 1485 
Standonck occupied the office of rector of the university 
for a period of three months*®. He was too faithful a 
student of the Brethren of the Common Life, as Renaudet 
puts it, to devote much of his time to the pursuit of 
poetry or scholastic disputes. Instead of writing’ learned 
commentaries on Peter Lombard or Aristotle, he spent 
his leisure time in preaching®. At Gouda the Brethren 
of the Common Life had been accustomed to preach to 
the people in their own language. Standonck must often 
have attended their addresses or sermons. Those poor 
wandering sheep ought to be taught something, the 
_ brethren had felt. Many a time they must have discussed 
in Standonck’s presence the need of reform. One of the 
means they employed was the education of school boys, 
fashioned after Groote’s model at Zwolle; the other, 
short addresses to the people on Sundays and holidays”. 
Standonck had caught something of Groote’s message, 
for although Flemish was his mother tongue, he became 


one of the most famous preachers at Paris, as famous as 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 239 


Oliver Maillard and John Raulin. The themes he dwelt 
on most were the abuses in the Church and the need of 
fighting sin for all the people, high and low, rich and 
poor. He no doubt consciously imitated the Brethren of 
the Common Life at Gouda". 

But Standonck was in close contact with the Sorbonne, 
the bulwark of conservative theology. For some time he 
acted as librarian of the Sorbonne’’. And what was of 
still greater significance, he became very intimately 
acquainted with Francis de Paule, one of the most in- 
fluential mendicant friars in France, and founder of a 
new monastic order. This man made a profound im- 
pression upon Standonck. His extraordinary humility, 
love of poverty, and mortification of the flesh all 
enhanced the magnetism of his personality’. Luther met 
the same sort of a person at Magdeburg in 1497: also a 
friar, whose wasted features haunted him for years”. 

“As a disciple of the Dutch mystics”, writes Renaudet, 
“of the theologians of the Sorbonne, and of Francis de 
Paule, he fought until the day of his death for the reform 
of the Church’’*®. Standonck conceived the idea of re- 
forming the whole body of the clergy. In 1493 the 
occasion was given him to present his plans, for in that 
year Charles VIII, king of France, convoked an assembly 
of prelates and doctors at Tours, where Standonck was 
asked to read his report of proposed reform. He advised 
that the secular clergy pay more attention to their duties 
as pastors, that canons should come oftener to church, 
that vicars ought to read the masses exactly as prescribed, 
and curates and vicars who refused to administer the 
sacraments except on payment of a fee should be severely 
reprimanded. Above all, he advised that those who had 
been appointed pastors of congregations be obliged to 
reside among their people, instead of being allowed to 


240 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


live at Paris. If altogether unable to absent themselves 
from Paris, they should provide assistants to take charge 
of the neglected flocks. Those who offered their prebends 
to the highest bidders should be deprived of these posi- 
tions, or subjected to some other form of punishment. 
Standonck said little about the monks, or regular clergy, 
but plainly intimated that they should adhere strictly to 
monastic vows. No one should be allowed to ascend the 
pulpit whose ignorance or scandalous behavior might lead 
the people astray. Bishops and other officials were urged 
to tolerate no longer the sale of indulgences or the grant- 
ing of absolutions whereby the people could be exploited. 
The synods of the dioceses would have to assemble every 
six months, the provincial councils once a year; the 
superiors of reformed monasteries should occupy a lead- 
ing position among the attendants, and “diligent inquisi- 
tion should be made regarding the excesses, crimes, abuses 
and defaults of the people of the church” (clergy). At 
intervals the bishops and archdeacons should ene the 
activities of the priests. 
The clergy were to meet all their oblipsunre to per- 
form all their social functions. Standonck deplored the 
way in which “the clergy squandered the property of the 
Church in laying out grand estates, buying dogs and 
birds against God and reason”. He wanted supervisors 
of the poor to be appointed; these men should then be 
ordered to support the needy with the revenues of the 
abbeys and cathedral chapters; for it was for the benefit 
of the poor that the clergy had received their material 
possessions. Hospitals should henceforth be left in charge 
of persons who did not nurse the sick for temporal gain. 
Delegates should be appointed by the provincial councils 
for the administration of the hospitals. At the same time 
the Church should not neglect its duties of correction and 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 241 


justice. Many poor people were now being robbed by 
certain clerics; innocent folk had been excommunicated ; 
the funds derived from the sacrament of penance were 
divided among the bishops and the archdeacons; and, 
certain of being able to purchase back again whatever 
sort of a position they might occasionally lose, the 
culpable rich, the blasphemers, usurers, and immoral 
priests knew no scruples. All these scoundrels ought to 
be subjected to corporal and public punishment! 

But the restoration of the Church could never be ac- 
complished unless prospective clerics were better educated. 
No position of trust should be granted to ‘men without 
virtue, without education, vicious, infamous, unknown, 
or with titles unjustly conferred’. The Benedictine pre- 
lates and the superior of the college of Marmoutier also 
presented their projects of reform, but confined them- 
selves largely to the monastic orders ; Standonck proposed 
a scheme which, if realized, might for a generation at 
least have restored the Church in France. But before all 
things it was absolutely necessary that the king prohibit 
the pope from giving benefices to his favorites, and that 
he cease selling these benefices to the highest bidder. 
Standonck insisted that the Pragmatic Sanction should 
be strictly applied. At Paris he gained a large circle of 
friends and admirers, such as John Quentin, John Emery, 
John Saulay, Nicholas de Hacqueville, Oliver Maillard, 
John Clerée, Gilbert Fournier, Pierre Bourgeois, and 
John Raulin®. — 

It should be observed that Standonck’s program was 
that of Gerard Groote. Groote had asserted that the 
coming reform would rest with the rising generation. 
For that very reason he and John Cele, rector of the 
school at Zwolle, became such intimate friends. Groote 
had often invited poor boys to his house to copy books 


242 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


for money. To these boys he gave religious instruction, 
and urged his followers to do the same. Gradually the 
school of Zwolle had attracted hundreds upon hundreds 
of boys; gradually also the brethren-houses had multi- 
plied in the Low Countries and Germany. Groote also . 
had wanted more than learning. He had spoken at length 
about those greedy Pharisees of his time, who. put up 
everything for sale, robbed the poor, led immoral lives. 
in spite of their long prayers, and left their flocks to take 
care of themselves. How sacred a task a priest had to 
perform, he had often said. No one could lead others 
before he had first overcome his own lower self. And 
years of study were needed ere one could ever hope to 
direct other souls with a chance of success. This pre- 
liminary study included mental as well as spiritual train- 
ing. Bishops should beware of appointing ignorant, 
vicious, or indolent pastors. 

Standonck was not influenced by Groote alone; many 
of the sentences he uttered had been copied from the 
rules of the council of Sens'’, and he mentioned some 
abuses which had been practically unknown in Groote’s 
time, among them, the sale of indulgences. But Stan- 
donck’s burning zeal for reform, and the kind of reform 
he was aiming at remind us very forcibly of Groote and 
the Brethren of the Common Life. And just as Groote 
had focused the attention of all the clergy in the Nether- 
lands on his program for reform, when addressing their 
leaders at Utrecht, so Standonck now appealed to the 
whole body of the clergy in France. 

John Standonck had been one of those poor boys who 
had been educated at the expense of Groote’s new brother- 
hood. How many years he had lived with the brethren 
at Gouda we do not know; but no fewer than eight years, 
and perhaps as many as ten or twelve. He remained 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 243 


there long enough at any rate to be saturated with the 
ideas of the Christian Renaissance. Not only did he 
preach at Paris, and present his program for reform at 
Tours, but he founded a dormitory for poor students 
very much like those erected by the brethren at Deventer 
and Zwolle. In this dormitory Erasmus was to have a 
room some day, and also Calvin. Here also the master- 
pieces of Christian mysticism would be read and copied 
in untold numbers, among them the “Imitation”, the 
“Spiritual Ascensions”, and the “Rosary of Spiritual 
Exercises’. . 

On the 17th of March, 1490, John Standonck bought 
a small house on the Rue des Sept-Voies, between the 
Rue Saint-Symphorien and the Rue de Reims, adjoining 
the garden of the Chateau-Festu, which belonged to the 
ruined college of Montaigu. Here he invited a small 
number of poor students to live with him, who attended 
the courses at Montaigu, but resided at Standonck’s 
house, forming a sort of semi-monastic fraternity, in 
imitation of the “‘scolares pauperes’’, living in the dor- 
mitories of the Brethren of the Common Life. They 
confessed their sins to each other and often assembled 
to listen to addresses by their superior on the “rooting out 
of vices and the acquisition of virtues’. Indolent inmates 
were punished’*. Soon the odor of their piety spread 
abroad*®. From Montaigu and several other colleges of 
the university students came asking for admission. In 
1493 more than eighty of them were lodging with 
Standonck”®. 

The house had become too small. Standonck was now 
obliged to look for more spacious quarters. He tried in 
vain to buy the building owned by the abbots of Vézelay, 
which was situated behind the college of Montaigu. But 
fortunately his acquaintance with some of the most in- 


244 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


fluential men in the kingdom was to result in providing 
him with a still better home. Shortly before the year 
1492 he met Louis Malet de Graville, Admiral of France, 
a man of large fortune as well as high office. He was 
favorably impressed with Standonck’s plans, and resolved 
to repair the dilapidated buildings which constituted the 
ancient college of Montaigu. The admiral commenced 
by having a number of buildings on the corner torn 
down, facing the monastery of Ste. Genevieve. After 
this part of the program had been completed a new chapel 
was built, and a new dormitory for poor students. In 
the meantime another great personage had come forward 
with further plans and additional means: John de Pont- 
ville, of Rochechouart. Eighty-four men ought to inhabit 
the place, it was decided, “representing the twelve 
Apostles, the seventy-two select disciples of Jesus Christ”, 
together with two chaplains, who were to represent the 
Savior and the blessed Virgin, making a total of eighty- 
six. Early in the year 1495 the first eighty-six occupants 
entered their new home. 

The dormitory consisted of four stories. On the first 
floor were the auditorium, two small rooms for the 
chaplains, and the library, containing a very large number 
of mystical writings. On the second floor the twelve 
theologians were accommodated, on the third the seventy- 
two students of arts. But this building was unfit for 
those who needed airy and spacious quarters, consequent- 
ly Standonck asked for permission to use the old Chateau- 
Festu with its garden, adjoining the dormitory, which he 
and his friends had at first occupied. His request was 
granted in September, 1496. Moreover, Admiral de 
Graville had the principal dormitory reconstructed, facing 
the Rue des Sept-Voies. The whole group of buildings 
was henceforth referred to as the college of Montaigu, 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 245 


although the houses served quite a different purpose from 
those which formerly had constituted the college of 
Montaigu. Montaigu had been a sort of academy, a 
boarding school for rather well-to-do students; Stan- 
donck added a dormitory for poor students. Of the first 
he had been the principal ever since 1483; of the second 
he was the founder’. Not satisfied with his two build- 
ings and the garden at Paris, he secured in addition large 
tracts of land in the Landes, some woods at Arcy, and 
a farm at Wissous. These did not exactly belong to him, 
but he drew rent from them, and the poor students could 
work on the farm at Wissous in summer. In 1499 
Standonck prepared a preliminary constitution for his 
new dormitory”, but soon he was interrupted in his 
work, for Louis XII, the new king of France, expelled 
him from the country. 

What was the cause of the king’s action? On the 24th 
of June, 1497, Robert Briconnet, archbishop of Reims, 
and chancellor of France, had died. His brother William, 
bishop of St. Malo, abbot of Grandmont and cardinal, 
applied for the vacant position. He was recommended 
by the king, supported by his son, the bishop of Lodéve, 
and by several other persons of note in the country. On 
the cathedral chapter and the populace of Reims he now 
exerted a scandalous pressure, bribing right and left, and 
sparing neither menaces nor promises. Consequently he 
received 67 votes out of 68. One canon, however, named 
Biguet, did not let himself be coaxed or bribed. He came 
to Paris, and was cordially received by the reformers. It 
was agreed that Standonck should become a candidate, 
in protest against the evil of plural benefices, for the 
brother of the deceased archbishop ought to be content 
with his bishopric, not to mention his position as abbot 


246 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE . 


and cardinal. All the formalities of the election were 
strictly observed: canon Biguet voted for Standonck. 
Standonck’s friends urged him to plead his cause be- 
fore the Court. Never before had such a hopeless cause 
been tried, but John Raulin, the celebrated preacher, | 
scorned all human prudence. “I feel”, he wrote to Stan- 


AOS fs be eR aS Take courage and assemble about you 
all those who mournfully bewail the troubles of the 
HUTCH sera ks You are uneasy now and hesitate. I 


want you to hesitate no longer’. This letter became 
known to outsiders. The abbot of Cluny demanded that 
he give an account of his action, whereupon he replied 
with his customary biblical eloquence: “I do not deny 
that I have encouraged Standonck......... Could I 
regard with dry eyes the desolation of my mother, the 
Church? How can I help weeping over the misery of 
the daughter of my people? You yourself, my father, 
I know you watch her with an anxious heart......... 
The bishop of Saint Malo should not be ignorant that a 
wise man prefers salutary bitterness to deadly sweet- 
RESS an he sons The Savior did not give me light to be 
hidden under a bushel, but to declare war against those 
who are harming the Church of my Savior Jesus, to fight 
against the powers and authorities of darkness”. Bricon- 
net proposed to let Standonck reform the abbey of 
Grandmont, and another one, if he would withdraw his 
candidature; but his friends persuaded him to persevere. 

When the debates began at the end of July, 1498, it 
immediately became apparent that on the side of the 
reformers there was nothing to be hoped for. The king 
did not take the case seriously. Poulain, lawyer for the 
reformers, endeavored to prove that an election should 
be declared null and void when it was conducted under 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 247 


the pressure of secular powers in favor of an unlettered 
candidate, or carried on by men bribed with benefices. 
It was all in vain. Standonck was ordered to withdraw 
his application, and sentenced to pay a fine of two 
thousand pounds. 

To complicate matters for Standonck, the king had 
won a divorce suit against his wife Jeanne of France by 
means of judges of the Church carefully selected by 
Pope Alexander VI, and was now about to marry Anna 
of Brittany. Standonck publicly condemned the act of 
the king. The Gospel of Mark; he asserted, forbade any- 
one to send away his wife except on the charge of 
adultery. Thomas Warnet, a pupil of Standonck, and 
one of his best friends among the missionaries from the 
Low Countries, thundered forth from the pulpit that text 
of John the Baptist addressed to Herod: “It is not lawful 
for thee to have her”. To put it mildly, the king was 
considerably irritated; and the end of the whole matter 
was that Standonck was exiled from France. He en- 
trusted the charge of Montaigu to Noél Béda, his pupil”. 

Standonck naturally turned his steps to his native 
country. First he stopped at Cambray, where he was 
the guest of Henry of Bergen, who had induced Erasmus 
to enter the college of Montaigu. Standonck and Henry 
of Bergen founded a college at Cambray, and agreed that 
it should follow the rules of Montaigu. From Cambray 
Standonck traveled to Valenciennes, where he founded 
a similar institution; next he stopped at Mechlin and 
Louvain, and founded two more colleges. In the latter 
place he left his work in charge of Adrian Floriszoon, 
the future Pope Adrian VI, who also had received a 
goodly share of his elementary and secondary education 
from the Brethren of the Common Life, and who acquit- 
ted himself so well of his task at Louvain that his college 


248 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


became the most flourishing of the four institutions. It 
even survived the college of Montaigu, for it existed 
till 1798**. 

In the meantime the friends of Standonck at Paris 
succeeded in getting the decree of exile repealed. Fore- . 
most among them were De Graville, the French admiral, 
Louis d’Amboise, bishop of Albi, and John Clerée, vicar 
general of the Congregation of the Holland Dominicans, 
a very powerful monastic organization founded in Hol- 
land in 1464. Standonck maintained very intimate rela- 
tions with the Dominicans of the Holland Congregation, 
for they were burning with the zeal of reform and were 
inducing a large number of monasteries in the Low 
Countries and France to adopt their rules”. John Clerée, 
the vicar general of the Holland Dominicans, was con- 
fessor of Louis XII. Perhaps his influence may have 
swung the balance in favor of Standonck, who at once 
hurried back to Paris, arriving in July, 1500°°. 

Immediately after his arrival at Paris, Standonck took 
the necessary steps for obtaining official recognition of | 
the five. new colleges*’. He now drew up the final 
revision of the constitution of Montaigu, which was 
officially approved on the 30th of January, 1503. There 
were at this time more than 200 students living in the 
dormitory of Montaigu. The king was very much pleased 
with Standonck’s work and in February, 1503, he granted 
the college 200 pounds a year. Though scarcely ten years 
old, the “congregation” had sent out three hundred men 
to reform monasteries, of whom the Dominicans and 
Franciscans had received the larger number. The Con- 
gregation of Montaigu therefore was practically nothing 
else than a preparatory school for the reformed monastic 
orders”®. 

To what degree Montaigu resembled the institutions 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE — 249 


of the Brethren of the Common Life may be learned 
from a comparison of their respective constitutions and 
other regulations. “The constitution of the Congregation 
of Montaigu was not made in a day’, Godet rightly 
remarks. “It is probable”, he continues, “that the first 
disciples, grouped about Standonck in his house on the 
Rue des Sept-Voies, received from him some oral pre- 
cepts, borrowed directly by him from the methods of his 
first teachers, the Brethren of the Common Life. One 
might state, without making a great error, that the 1n- 


stitution of Standonck at Paris was an offshoot of those , 


of the brethren’’. Standonck remained continually in the 
closest touch with them; frequently he was their guest, 
and they eagerly supported his institutions in the Low 
Countries. When Noél Béda, who had become Stan- 
donck’s successor shortly after his death in 1504, cut the 
ties which united the colleges in the Low Countries with 
the mother institution, the Brethren of the Common Life 
in Ghent took charge of the one at Cambray; throughout 
the whole of the sixteenth century they supported the 
college at Mechlin’’. 

The rules of Montaigu owe much to those in use at 
Deventer and Zwolle, and therefore in use at Gouda’*’. 
The students residing in Standonck’s dormitory were in- 
structed to make a collection of excerpts, called “rapiari- 
um”. They had to confess their sins to each other, and 
were enjoined to correct each other’s mistakes, short- 
comings, and wrongdoings. The constitution also makes 
provision for the daily examination of one’s conscience, 
and the performance of humble tasks for each member 
in turn. At Montaigu, as at Deventer, the novices and 
laymen wore grey clothes, the priests black ones**. But 
the dormitories of the Brethren of the Common Life 
were not preparatory schools for the mendicant orders, 


250 -THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


as one writer wrongly asserts**. It is also very doubtful 
whether the brethren at Deventer and Zwolle made much 
use of corporal punishments, or the rectors in the schools 
at Zwolle and later at Deventer, like Cele and Hegius. 
The Brethren of the Common Life were accustomed to 
be very harsh to themselves and use their neighbors 
gently. They also were much less ascetic than Standonck 
and his pupils. Standonck had in the first place been 
educated in a rather obscure and extremely poor brethren- 
house. If he really left Gouda directly for Louvain, as 
Godet thinks, he must have lived with the poor brethren 
at Gouda for at least ten years, for he was born shortly — 
before the year 1450. In France he was influenced by 
the asceticism of Francis de Paule. His great liking for 
the friars should not be overlooked in this connection. 
He selected all the rigor and austerity of the rules follow- 
ed by Groote’s disciples, but added to these many ingre- 
dients of a severer type of mortification. He greatly 
increased the number of fasts, and made no provision 
for repose. In the middle of the night he and his’ follow- 
ers rose to pray. Again, the spirit of the former college 
of Montaigu still pervaded the atmosphere, though the 
old buildings were gone. And there was the chapter of 
Notre-Dame with its exigences, and the various donators. 
All these elements combined to augment Standonck’s 
asceticism, and were clearly reflected in his new consti- 
tution®®. 


II 


Six years after John Standonck had grouped his first 
followers about him in the house adjoining the forsaken 
college of Montaigu, the call came through him for some 
missionaries of the Windesheim Congregation. James 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 251 


d’Aubusson, abbot of Chateau-Landon, in the diocese of 
Sens, in 1496 conceived the project of re-establishing 
discipline in his monastery. He was advised to see Stan- 
donck, who wrote for him to the prior superior at 
Windesheim. Never before had the new congregation 
sent out reformers to districts where only French was 
spoken, but Tillman Stuermans, the prior of Windes- 
heim, promised to send two monks, because he knew 
Standonck’s zeal for reform. The two brethren were to 
visit Chateau-Landon, and render account of the situation 
in that monastery. They arrived at Paris in June. One 
of the two was called Reynier Koetken; the other’s name 
we do not know. Koetken had entered the monastery of 
Mount St. Agnes in 1465**, and had spent six years there 
under the direction of Thomas a Kempis. He must also 
have known Gansfort, for the latter was often a guest 
at Mount St. Agnes between 1475 and 1482. Standonck 
met Koetken, and wrote of him on June 28 in a letter 
addressed to the prior at Windesheim: “I rejoice to note 
that you have chosen him for planting your saintly 
reform in France — him, a man so worthy of veneration, 
so prudent, so virtuous”. If they would send brethren 
like Reynier and one novice who could speak French, 
success would be assured’. 

' Upon his return to the Netherlands, Koetken proposed 
that a mission be sent. A young monk of Groenendael, 
where Ruysbroeck had once lived, was entrusted with the 
preliminary negotiations. Shortly afterwards seven re- 
formers appeared in France. The leader of the small 
party was John Mombaer, or John of Brussels, author 
of the “Rosetum Exercitiorum Spiritualium”, or “Rosary 
of Spiritual Exercises”. He had spent several years at 
Mount St. Agnes, and may have known Thomas a 
Kempis personally, whom he calls the author of the 


252 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


“Imitation of Christ’*®.-Koetken was also in the party. 
The reformers were cordially welcomed by Standonck 
at Montaigu, and were conducted by him to the monastery 
of Chateau-Landon. Their pathway was not strewn with 
roses; the few they may have detected were studded with 
ugly thorns, for the monks of the abbey objected to the 
rigorous discipline now instituted. Two of them tore the 
boxes open where the archives were, and secreted the 
books of account; others took away the wine, and finally 
the stables were set on fire. The newcomers were de- 
prived of their bread, wood, and clothes. For a moment 
Mombaer thought of returning to the Netherlands, but 
Standonck persuaded him to stay. It was only through 
the assistance of Admiral de Graville, John de Rély, 
archbishop of Sens, and some other friends of Standonck 
that the next year the reform at Chateau-Landon became 
a real success. Mombaer was made prior, and Standonck 
sent three young men from Montaigu to help him*’. 

It was now decided to introduce the rule of Windes- 
heim at the ancient monastery of St. Victor, in Paris. 
One by one the most famous Augustinian convents in the 
Low Countries and Germany had acknowledged the 
moral superiority: of Windesheim; the time had now 
come, the French reformers believed, for St. Victor to 
follow their example. Once more a request for assistance 
was sent to the prior superior at Windesheim. Standonck 
and his pupils Noel Béda, Thomas Warnet, and John 
Goussard; the canons Nicholas of Hacqueville, du Refuge 
and Bailly; John Clerée the Dominican, and several other 
prominent reformers seconded the request. The Windes- 
heim Congregation again sent two men to reconnoitre 
the situation. They met Standonck and some of his 
friends, and visited Chateau-Landon. Then they returned 
to Windesheim. Mombaer wrote a letter, saying: “TI 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 253 


have received a letter in the name of the reverend bishop 
of Paris, of the presidents of the Parlement, the very 
celebrated company of doctors, stating that we must not 
hesitate. The archbishop of Sens, the bishop, the admiral, 
and all Krance address their prayers to you. A great 
work depends on you. It is not simply the question of 
reforming that once so famous abbey, but in its train, 
the whole Gallican Church. Of that I entertain profound 
and certain hopes. If the work is well conducted, it will 
be the beginning of an immense revival. For St. Victor 
we need learned and studious brethren, as they will 
have to show ‘themselves in court and among the 
doctors’’**. 

For the second time the Windesheim Congregation 
sent seven missionaries to France. The one among them 
best known to us is Cornelius Gerard, or Cornelius 
Aurelius of Gouda, a very intimate friend of Erasmus. 
He probably had been educated at Deventer, but in 1497 
was living in a monastery near Leiden, a member of the 
Windesheim Congregation. For eight years he had been 
corresponding with Erasmus. Both friends were devoted 
readers of the Ancients, and both greatly admired the 
Italian humanists**. He was just about to visit Italy, 
when the order came from Windesheim for him to leave 
for Paris. The reformers entered Paris in October, 1497. 
Erasmus was glad to see them all. In spite of his un- 
fortunate experiences as a monk at Stein in Holland, he 
still favored monasticism*’. 

But Standonck had been too sanguine about the 
chances of success at St. Victor. From the very begin- 
ning the reformers were treated as intruders. They were 
refused admission to the rich library and had to borrow 
their books from elsewhere. Reynier Koetken, their 
leader, was lacking in tact, and none of them could speak _ 


254 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


French. Qne can easily comprehend why nothing could 
be accomplished under such circumstances. On the 20th 
of December several influential persons visited the abbey, 
ordering the monks in the name of the king to restore 
discipline. The order was strictly obeyed. The reformers 
from the Windesheim Congregation, however, were not 
consulted. Still the monks acted as if it was all their 
work. The library was opened to them. Cornelius Gerard 
extolled the great abbey, and Erasmus joyfully told the 
story of his friends’ success in a letter to the superior 
‘at Stein. Nevertheless, Hacqueville and John Emery | 
were furious, and Standonck obtained a promise from 
Charles VIII of four commissioners charged to intro- 
duce a definitive reform. Unfortunately the king died 
on the 7th of April, 1498. During the following summer 
the reformers from the Netherlands became aware of 
their plight. Though Mombaer hesitated for months, 
he finally gave them permission to return to Windes- 
heim*?, 

The failure at St. Victor was’ quite a blow to the 
reformers. But John Raulin tried to comfort Standonck. | 
He reminded him of the many mishaps of Paul and the 
other apostles, and Standonck remained steadfast. He 
decided to reform the monastery at Livry, situated a few 
miles north-east of Paris. Erasmus wrote Mombaer he 
would commemorate the affair, and took an active in- 
terest in it himself**. Mombaer finally appeared at Livry, 
followed by some of his friends, and in March, 1499, 
Standonck sent two pupils from Montaigu. One more 
monastery was reformed by them, namely, that of 
Cysoing in the diocese of Tournay. The prior superior 
at Windesheim refused to send any more men, wherefore 
the reform was left to Mombaer. And then still another 
monastery followed: Saint-Savior of Melun. But on the 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 255 


night of January 6, 1502, Hacqueville suddenly passed 
away, and in December of the same year Mombaer died. 
Still the reform instituted at Chateau-Landon, Livry, 
Cysoing, and Melun remained a success. They formed 
a chapter of their own, with a constitution modeled after 
that of Windesheim. As one after the other of the Dutch 
missionaries passed away, and no new ones from the 
Netherlands ever came to fill their places, the ties which 
united the four monasteries with the Windesheim Con- 
gregation gradually loosened*’. 

. More important than the monastic reform carried on 
under Mombaer’s direction was the influence of his 
“Rosary of Spiritual Exercises’. This work is the only 
well-known mystical production of the Windesheim Con- 
gregation written by a person who had not previously 
gathered the material in the house of the Brethren of 
the Common Life at Deventer. It bears unmistakable 
signs of having been copied after the “Treatise on 
Spiritual Exercises’ of Radewijns and the “Spiritual 
Ascensions” by Zerbolt. As was to be expected, Mom- 
baer began with the fall of man in Paradise. Man was 
created in the image of God, and fell. His prime duty 
now is to purge his flesh, his mind, and his heart from 
sin, or evil**. All the vices must be eradicated before 
virtues can enter the heart. Mombaer’s whole method, 
and much of his terminology, he borrowed directly from 
Radewijns and Zerbolt. Man must by all means try to 
get back, but since he has fallen so low, it is impossible 
for him to return; except with the assistance of Grace 
or the Holy Spirit and religious exercises. Hence Mom- 
baer believed in the doctrine of free will no more than 
did Gansfort. 

Groote’s followers made much of “Grace” and also 
much of “good works”. Some theologians have thought 


256 ' ‘THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


that the two exclude each other, just as many others have 
stated that predestination leaves no room for even a 
limited free will. Gansfort tried to solve the problem by 
saying: “However faithfully and carefully a farmer may 
sow his field, the sweat of his brow counts for nothing 
unless God from heaven bless his work. But after the 
seed is sown he does not expect a blessing from heaven 
alone; he expects it because he has a fertile farm, because 
he has the seed, the beasts of burden and agricultural 
implements, because he has his limbs, and strength, and 
willingness to endure. In a word, what he is and has is 
altogether due to the beneficence of God; for in the last 
analysis both we and all our possessions are from God. 
But although God is the source of all things, still he 
wishes the farmer to labor through these agencies, — 
and this to such an extent that although God himself 
does it all, no blessing, no fruit will attend a lazy, snoring 
farmer’’*. 

Gansfort and Mombaer were both children of the 
“New Devotion”, and both followers of Groote. Though 
Mombaer wrote his “Rosary” more than a century after 
Groote’s death, he speaks of that great reformer as a 
person well known to him and to his contemporaries. 
‘According to Gerard Groote’, he writes, “two things 
are to be avoided in our spiritual exercises, namely, too 
great affliction and immoderate activity’’**. Groote had 
noticed that many among his disciples had become down- 
hearted about their many shortcomings. They had tried 
very hard, and still they had failed. Consequently Groote 
wrote them time and again to cheer up. He also, as we 
know, warned his followers against too great reliance 
on external observances, like fasting, long prayers, and 
keeping awake at night. Mombaer shows that Groote’s 
advice had not been forgotten and he admits the debt 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE _ 257 


he owes the founder of the new brotherhood at Deventer 
and Zwolle. Thus he called the attention of his readers 
in foreign lands to the teachings of Gerard Groote of 
Deventer. Luther, for example, read that statement in 
1515, and Lefevre, the great French scholar and reform- 
er, read it even earlier*’. 

It should be noted here that two previously unkown 
letters of Groote are found in Ms. no. 1250 of the new 
acquisitions of the “‘Bibliothéque Nationale’ at Paris. 
One of the two is addressed to “somebody dearly loved 
by him in Christ and greatly tempted”. “You must 
know ”, he writes, “that saintly and experienced men have 
often been beset by the gravest temptations, either 
through the lessening of divine grace in order to probe 
their faith, or through the influence of the enemy. The 
arrows of the devil do indeed more easily pierce the 
human heart when the shield of divine grace and truth 
appears to protect it less. In the Scriptures this with- 
drawal of grace is often called spiritual poverty. It is 
also likened to the cold of winter, to death, and the 
shadows of death; it has been called darkness, inferno, 
a desert, banishment, etc.”. Then he quotes from a large 
number of psalms, often giving the wrong number. 
“Thus is man left alone’, he continues, “in order that 
God may probe him and show him how much he will do 
for him. Wherefore Gregory says: ‘Man will consider 
himself master of his lower self as long as he has not 
sensed the lack of faith, hope, and love in his mind’. 
We must firmly hope and believe that God will cause all 
things to work together for the good of his beloved, 
who according to his will are called saints, that is, 
predestined to eternal life. Hence we should humbly 
confess our guilt and negligence before God, as well as 
all our evil thoughts, and admit ourselves unworthy of 


258 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Firmly endeavor to live your faith before God. Rise 
above your grief and your fears, and above the 
instigations of the enemy, who whispers: ‘Where is 
thy God’? When our faith is well founded, our life is 
just. Hence Habakkuk says in his third chapter: “The 
just shall live by faith’. God secretly and invisibly 
assists us in our inner selves......... Rejoice that you 
are deemed worthy to suffer tribulation in Christ’s 
name, just as the apostles gloried in their calumn- 
IGS ae ee et And offer yourselves likewise to God, 
saying: “Let thy will be done’. Manual labor is very 
helpful in freeing us from evil insinuations......... 
The Apostle says God will not let us be tempted beyond 
Duncstrenoth yi: |. see It is well to reflect often on 
positive ideals, the kingdom of heaven, the articles of 
faith, and the operations of virtue’’**. 

Mombaer was familiar also with Zerbolt’s “Spiritual 
Ascensions’’ and prepared a course of spiritual exercises 
which, if faithfully practised, would help the reader to 
approach the final goal, the love of God and man. The 
book is divided into titles, or articles. The first one is 
called ““‘Eruditiorium Exercitiorum’, or “Of the more 
learned (advanced) exercises’, and covers six folios in 
the Zwolle edition of 1494. It is divided into several 
sub-divisions, which deal with a great multitude of 
subjects, having little connection with each other. It 
seems like a vast jungle of nouns and verbs, suggestive 
of purity, fervor, moderation, advice, congruity; dignity, 
doing, commanding, giving, promising, enemies, judg- 
ment, example, writing, evil, sin, pride, order, place, 
time, etc.*®. Probably this first title or article is intended 
as a sort of introduction, or survey. Those following are 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 259 


more to the point. Article II is called “Ordinarium vitae 
religiosae”, or “The Arrangement of one’s religious 
life’, and deals with the attitude toward our superiors, 
equals or neighbors, and ourselves, and speaks of 
meditation, imitation, separation, emulation, etc.. In 
article III we find the real exercises, both for external 
and internal lives. We are told what to do when awaking 
early in the morning; if drowsy, we should shake up 
our minds, and utter a short prayer of thanksgiving. 
Next we are to consider the needs of the body: to take 
some physical exercises, and after that to prepare ourselves 
for the morning prayer. Next we are informed about the 
exercises of our inner lives. First, how we are to study: 
what to read, how to read, and why. Next, how we are 
to behave during and after the daily mass. Then comes 
dinner, and then the exercises after dinner. Once 
more we are referred to Magister Gerard Groote. 
“Groote teaches”, says Mombaer, “that monks should 
not despise working on the farm and harvesting’’®’. 

Article IV is devoted to the subject of reading 
prayers. The following one is called “Chiropsalterium’’, 
and extols the method of singing hymns, ‘whereby 
one can accomplish more in one hour than else in a 
whole day”. It also contains a list of subjects which 
are to be meditated on,—one subject for each day, 
most of the subjects dealing with the life and passion of 
Christ. Article VI discourses about the Holy Supper; 
articles VII, VIII, IX, X, and XI continue tke 
discussion. Article XII contains a list of exercises, 
varying from day to day, and the following one 
elaborates upon the beneficial results of examining 
one’s daily conduct every night, this closing the first 
part of the book. The other parts need not be analyzed 
here. 


260 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


III 


Mombaer’s “Rosary of Spiritual Exercises’’ certainly 
is not a literary masterpiece. For although it exerted 
some influence on Lefevre’, and was assiduously 
studied by Standonck, Hacqueville, and most other 
leading reformers in France®*, the work lacked that 
freshness and fervor which had caused the fame of the 
“Imitation”. Still it possesses historical significance. 

The same may be said of Standonck’s work. There 
is something fundamentally wrong about his gloomy 
asceticism; but his program for the reform of the 
Gallican Church and the constitution he composed for 
the Congregation of Montaigu contain many sound 
elements. And in focusing the attention of the whole 
kingdom on his plans and his work, Standonck played 
a very important part in the history of reform within 
the Church before the year 1520. 

But he and Mombaer were not the only agents 
enlisted in sowing the seeds of the Christian Renais- 
sance in France, though they were in charge of the 
visible organization conducted for this purpose. Long 
before their arrival in France, the “Imitation of 
Christ” and the best work of Zerbolt had been widely 
read. The situation before 1500 has been very ably 
summarized by a French writer who says, “From the 
houses of the Common Life and the convents of the 
Canons Regular, which were united by the same 
thought, had come forth innumerable and prolix works, 
inspired by the same intimate, contemplative, and still 
active piety, which was called ‘New Devotion’, and 
which shortly after the first two decades of the fifteenth 
century found in the ‘Imitation’ its most efficacious 
and human expression. Soon it spread across the 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE _ 261 


Occident, reached the University of Paris, imposed 
itself even upon those who at first, like John Gerson, 
combated the spiritual imprudences; exercised on the 
Christian world, through the ‘Imitation’, a gentle and 
strong influence; transmitted itself from generation to 
generation until the Reformation by driving a wedge 
between the exhausted scholasticism and the rising 
humanism, as a protest against the arid discipline of 
syllogism and the dogmatic dryness of the official 
theology, and consoled those who, submitted to the 
authority of the Church and tradition, had nevertheless 
preserved the need of thinking and living their faith’’*. 
In a threefold way, then, the Christian Renaissance 
asserted itself in France. In the first place, it brought 
the mystical productions written or prepared in the 
brethren-house at Deventer. Secondly, it presented, 
through Standonck’s work, its ideals of reform within 
the Church by means of the education of a better 
equipped and more pious clergy. In the third place, it 
scattered the germs of new religious fervor among the 
Augustinian Canons Regular. Even St. Victor in the 
end joined Livry, and the Dominicans of Holland were 
very successful in France. Thus the foundations were 
laid for the Counter-Reformation. For Standonck so 
changed the ideals of his teachers in the Netherlands 
that his successors at Paris were already provided with 
definite plans when in 1520, and after, the Church was 
disrupted. 
~It would be worth while to investigate to how great 
an extent James Lefévre, the French reformer and 
humanist, absorbed the principles of the Christian 
Renaissance. That he was considerably influenced by 
the “Rosary” of Mombaer he attests himself. His first 
interest in mysticism, however, was probably aroused 


262 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


by the writings of Nicholas of Cues, with which he was 
acquainted as early as 1490”°°. Nicholas Cusa, we must 
remember, had received the larger share of his elemen- 
tary and secondary education at Deventer. In 1464, 
when he was about to die, he stipulated that a dormitory 


should be founded at Deventer with funds that he set 


aside for this purpose. The pupils in the new dormitory 
were to dress like the Brethren of the Common Life, 
and in every way they were to imitate their friends in 
the other dormitories at Deventer®®. Cusa had officially 
aided the reforms launched by the Windesheim Con- 
gregation in Saxony, and had been the guest of the 
Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life at Deventer. 
He had enthusiastically commended the piety of the 
Augustinian Canons and Canonnesses Regular at Wih- 
desheim and Diepenveen’’. 

We have often heard of Cusa as the forerunner of 
Leibnitz, and have seen his philosophy compared, with 
that of Giordano Bruno, but if one reads Cusa’s ““Opera’”’ 
carefully, he will find that Cusa was interested far more 
in the reformation of the Church than in philosophical 
questions. Suppose we examine the edition by Lefévre. 
The first work is called ‘““De Concordantia Catholica’’, 
and, as its tittle implies, deals with the unity of the 
Church. In the very first chapter Cusa says that there 
must be one head and many subjects. Christ is the head; 
his followers are all members of the body of the Church. 
The real head of the Church is Christ, not the pope. 
On folio 5 the name Christ meets us 14 times, and it 
is the only word written in large characters; this folio 
5 is the first page of the first work edited by Lefévre, 
whom we have every reason to call Cusa’s pupil. 

The same subject is continued in the following three 
chapters. Not a word is said about the pope, not one 


ibs, a 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE — 263 


stray thought enters deviating from the views of Groote. 
Cusa speaks of predestination and faith in exactly the 
same manner as did Groote. He also displays very 
much the same interest in those subjects which were of 
interest to Groote. Man can never judge, he says, who 
really are the true members of the Church®®. In 
chapter V Cusa claims that the unity of the Church is 
dependent on the attitude of the members. They should 
hold similar, and, if possible identical, beliefs. Cusa and 
Groote both speak of the militant and the triumphant 
churches’*. In chapter VI the leading topic again is 
Christ, the head, the mystical head. The Church is the 
mystical body of Christ: exactly as Groote taught. Cusa . 
also quotes from the same writers as did Groote and 
his followers, chiefly from the Bible and the Fathers. 
As for the powers of the pope, mentioned in chapters 
XIV-XV, Cusa tells us nothing new. He admits there 
had been many wicked popes, nevertheless the line of 
succession had to be maintained, even as Christ was a 
descendant of Adam®. Book II deals with the Church 
Councils. What he says here about the papacy is not 
quite so interesting as the views expressed by Gansfort. 
Significant it is, however, that Cusa is seen to be more 
interested in reform and theology than in anything else. 

The following statement is worth noting: “But we 
know that Peter did not receive any more power from 
Christ than did the other apostles. And although Christ 
had said, “Thou art Peter and on this rock shall I 
build my church’, nevertheless this rock signifies Christ, 
whom Peter confessed; and if Peter in this connection 
is to be regarded as a rock upon which the Church was 
founded, then the other apostles were likewise corner- 
stones-of the Church......... And if Christ said to 
Peter: ‘Feed my sheep’, it is evident that this feeding 


264 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of the sheep is the spoken word and his example....... 
Hence we may rightly say that all the apostles had 
equal powers with Peter......... The pope is not a 
bishop of the whole church, but the principal one among. 
all bishops’’**. Many other instances could be adduced 
showing how closely Cusa’s mystic religion and plans of 
reform resembled those of Groote’s followers in the 
Yssel country”. And as for the important question of 
justification by faith, Cusa believed exactly what 
Groote and Gansfort did. Said he: “Every sinner is the 
servant of sin. The servant cannot liberate himself 
from the bonds of sin. If the works of the law justi- 
fied, he could bring about his own justification. This, 
however, is impossible; hence, a contradiction”®. Such 
were the views of the man who introduced Lefévre to 
the field of mystic religion. 

Lefevre greatly admired Cusa. For years he searched 
for manuscripts containing’ Cusa’s works, till finally 
in 1514 he had them all published at Paris by Josse 
Badius, or Badius Ascensius, a former pupil of the 
brethren at Ghent. Lefévre also induced Badius to 
print the ‘“Rosetum’”’ of Mombaer in 1510%*, while in the 
same year he was the guest of the Brethren of the 
Common Life at Cologne®’. The brethren seem to have 
recommended several mystical productions to him, for 
in 1511 he edited the “Opus Theologicum” of Richard 
of St. Victor, and in 1512 the “De Ornatu Spiritualium 
Nuptiarum” by Ruysbroeck*’. It should be borne in 
mind that the brethren at Cologne in 1434 had produced 
the first German translation of the “Imitation of 
Christ’. Perhaps they told him about that work. He 
was being reproved for editing a work of Ruysbroeck, 
who had written all his works in the Flemish language. 
Far from condemning Ruysbroeck, he held that even a 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 265 


person well versed in Latin had a perfect right to write 
for the people in the vernacular. Renaudet suggests 
that Lefevre formed this and similar ideas during or 
shortly after his visit at Cologne. “Already in that 
year’, Renaudet continues, “he began to regret that 
the faithful ones could not understand the Latin prayers 
of the Catholic church services, the Gospel, or the 
Epistle, of which the priest, during the mass, recited the 
mysterious text’’®’. 

At Paris, where Lefevre spent most of his time, the 
influence of the Christian Renaissance was strongly 
felt. Here, as well as in Western Germany, it changed 
considerably the character of the rising humanism. 
“The centre of French Humanism”, writes Tilley, “was 
Paris, and this fact imparted what may be called a 
northern character to the movement. Gaguin himself 
was a Fleming by birth. So were his friends Pierre de 
Bur and the brothers Charles and Jean Fernand....... 
The result of this large northern element in northern 
Frenchman, Fleming, and Dutchman, was to impress 
upon the movement from the first a distinctive char- 
acter, which clearly differentiated it from Italian 
Humanism. This character was theological, religious, 
moral, educational......... Another feature of French 
Humanism, though this it shared with Italian Human- 
ism, was its recognition of the need for reform in 
education’. 

The chief reformers in France were Lefévre and 
Badius Ascensius®. A few words should be said here 
with regard to the life-work of -the latter. He had 
- attended the excellent school conducted by the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Ghent. The brethren had sent 
him to the University of Louvain, whence he had 
departed for Italy to study Greek. He became a better 


266 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


equipped scholar than Gaquin. His work “fully sub- 
stantiates his claim to be regarded as the chief promoter 
of Latin studies in France during the reign of Louis 
XII’. The old medieval grammar called “Doctrinale” 
was reformed by him, and his edition became very 
popular. His press at Paris, set up in 1503, turned out 
a huge mass of humanistic productions’. _ 

Badius Ascensius published the works of Thomas 
a Kempis at Paris, together with a biography composed 
by the humanist himself, in which he bears this witness 
of the brethren: “All were to approach as near as 
possible the life of the Apostles and of the primitive 
church of Christ, so that in the whole congregation there 
should be one heart, and that no one should consider 
or call anything his own. No one should seek outside 
the house the cure of souls, ecclesiastical benifices, or 
worldy occupations for the sake of gain; but clerics 
who should be found worthy, would be promoted to 
cures that were not too lucrative......... No one 
should beg from door to door, and in order that they 
might not be driven to this by want, all should avoid 
idleness, and according to their abilities should tran- 
scribe books, or instruct children. They were to take 
care that they themselves, and all whom they should 
teach, should venerate God with the deepest piety. They 
should love their neighbor with due charity, and should 
assist the poor with alms, according to their means’”’”. 

Of the school of the brethren at Ghent he wrote that 
here “the youth of the land gathered to receive the 
choicest literary instruction’. And in 1500 he addressed 
his teachers at Ghent in terms of the highest praise’. 

From Paris the chief literary productions of Groote’s 
followers spread throughout the whole kingdom, and 
invaded Spain and Italy besides. It would be a very 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCEIN FRANCE 267 


complicated task to follow the trail of even the “Imita- 
tion’ alone, on its journey from place to place, and 
often from home to home. One remarkabie incident, 
however, should be recorded here. In the Benedictine 
monastery of Montserrat, near Barcelona, in Spain, 
lived a pious abbot, named Garcia of Cisneros, nephew 
of Cardinal Ximenes of Cisneros. He had heard the 
fame of the “Imitation”, Gerard Zerbolt, and the 
brethren, wherefore he took a trip to France, and came 
back with a collection of mystical writings. In January, 

1499, he set up a press at Montserrat. At once he began 
to print 800 copies of the “Spiritual Ascensions” of 
Gerard Zerbolt’*. This work and the “Rosary” of 
Mombaer seem to have impressed him very much, for 
about this time he composed a work which he copied 
very largely after these two. He called it “Ejercitatorio 
de la vida expiritual’’, or “Spiritual Exercises”. In 1500 
he printed 1006 copies of this work, 800 in Spanish 
and 206 in the Latin translation. Several times it was 
reprinted in Latin, and both French and Italian transla- 
tions were made”. 

The “Spiritual Exercises” of Garcia of Cisneros have 
been carefully analyzed by Watrigant, a Jesuit scholar. 
The result of his investigation shows that Garcia of 
Cisneros copied the general outline of his course of 
spiritual exercises from Zerbolt. The aim he pursues is 
the same as that sought by Zerbolt. Chapters XLIX— 
LII of the work are almost verbally reproduced from 
Chapters XX VII—XXX of the ‘Spiritual Ascensions”’ 
‘by Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen’*. His chief source was 
Zerbolt, but he also made use of the ‘“Imitation’’, 
Mombaer’s ‘‘Rosetum’’, Gerson, Richard of St. Victor, 
and Bonaventura. Garcia borrowed rather heavily from 
Mombaer. “Almost all the practical hints, and nearly 


268 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


everything relating to the general method simply are 
extracts from the ‘Rosary’. 

The Christian Renaissance had become a movement 
of consequence. Doubtless, many other men soon follow- 
ed Garcia’s example in Spain and Italy, and many 
students carried home with them from Paris works like 
the “Imitation” and the “Spiritual Ascensions’’. The 
main reason why the work of Garcia of Cisneros is 
mentioned here is that it had a great influence on the 
life of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. 

Loyola was still a soldier when on the 21st of March, 
1522, he knocked at the gate of the monastery of Mont- 
serrat, where Cisneros had died in 1510. Here he spent 
three days in a narrow cell, and confessed all his sins 
to Father Xanones. On March 24 he laid aside his armor 
for ever, put on a hair-cloth, and issued forth as a 
pilgrim and servant of God. He intended to go to Bar- 
celona, but on his way he met some kind people who were 
going to the convent of St. Lucia at Manresa, situated 
only a few miles from Montserrat; there they secured a 
room for him. As the pestilence was raging at Barcelona, 
Loyola was obliged to remain at Manresa, and not only 
a few days, but nearly a whole year. 

At Manresa, Loyola went through nearly the same 
experiences as had Luther in the monastery at Erfurt. 
Tormented by the burden of sin and the fear of future 
punishment, he groaned, struggled, fasted, and prayed 
for forgiveness. He confessed his sins every day, but 
this. very confession increased his fears, and then he 
would wrestle again, and again, till at last hope wiped 
the drops of sweat from his weary brow. Luther fought 
from July, 1505, until October, 1512, while Loyola 
finished his battle in about half a year. There were 
several books that Loyola devoured at Manresa, chief 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 269 


among which were the “Imitation”, the “Life of Christ” 
by Ludolph of Saxony (d. 1378), the “Flower of the 
Saints”, containing legendary accounts of martyrs, and 
the “Spiritual Exercises” of Garcia of Cisneros. The 
“Imitation” made such an overpowering impression upon 
him that after reading it he cared little for any other 
work, From day to day he read only in the “Gersoncito”, 
as he called the “Imitation’’’*. In fact, when he finished 
his “Spiritual Exercises’, in 1526, he placed the ‘“‘Imita- 
tion” before the Gospel: “On the second day of the week 
and thereafter, it will be very profitable to read a selec- 
tion from the ‘Imitation’ or the Gospels, or the ‘Lives 
of the Saints’’’. Afterwards, when the official Latin 
translation appeared, which was first printed in 1545, 
this sentence was changed to read: “........ from the 
Gospel or some other pious book, like the ‘Imitation’, or 
the ‘Life of the Saints’”’. For Loyola did not mean to 
say that the “Imitation” was a better work than the 
Gospel. He probably meant that it was easier to under- 
stand®. But his extraordinary liking for this master- 
piece of the Christian Renaissance linked him at once 
with the other disciples of Gerard Groote. It has often 
been intimated that what the Bible became for Luther, 
the “Imitation” was for Loyola. The little work did 
indeed to a very large extent mould his whole life and 
all his plans**. 

Loyola loved the “Imitation”. He just as anxiously 
strove to circulate it as Luther did the Bible. Every one 
whom he wished to honor he presented with a copy. 
We involuntarily ask why this little mystical production 
from the Y'ssel country appealed to him so soon and so 
powerfully? It really contains nothing new, reasons 
professor Bohmer of Marburg. Nevertheless, in some 
way it changed Loyola’s whole outlook upon life. Hence- 


270 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


forth he no longer sought refuge in formal, external 
observances. He now tried to enrich his inner life. The 
mysticism of Groote’s followers had gripped him, and 
it held him fast. Gradually his whole inner life became 
purified; his will, feelings, thoughts, prayers, and actions 
were simultaneously spiritualized; after that time he was 
a new man. It was then that he first thought of com- 
posing a course of religious exercises”. 

The “Spiritualia Exercitia” of Loyola may be termed 
one of the last fruits of the Christian Renaissance**. The 
method of contemplation and most of the material for 
the meditations Loyola borrowed from the “Life of 
Christ” by Ludolph of Saxony, who wrote his work 
before Groote’s conversion. In some way, however, 
Loyola copied in an unmistakable manner after Zedbolt 
and Mombaer. He could not have read Zerbolt before 
1526, for till then he only knew Spanish, but still he 
must have been acquainted with its contents. The pious 
folk at Manresa probably had received some copies of 
Zerbolt’s “Spiritual Ascensions’ from the neighboring 
town of Montserrat. However this may be, Loyola 
borrowed quite systematically from Zerbolt. No one can 
disguise the fact that there is a great analogy between 
the plan of the “Spiritual Ascensions”’ of Gerard and the 
general arrangement of the ‘Exercises’ of Ignatius 
Loyola. And when one enters upon a more detailed 
comparison, he notices that the ascetic of Manresa re- 
sembles the Dutch author more closely than his com- 
patriot of Montserrat. For in addition to the points 
which he has in common with both, he resembles Gerard 
only in several important particulars which Cisneros has 
left out. Striking examples of the instructions lacking 
in the ‘“Exercitatorio”, but which are found both in the 
“Spiritual Ascensions” and the “Exercises”, relate to 


Re 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 271 


the examination of the conscience and the exact notion 
of true devotion. In the two masterpieces of Gerard of 
Zutphen and Ignatius we everywhere meet with a prac- 
tical spirit which is not found to the same degree in 
the work of Garcia of Cisneros. This practical spirit 
expresses itself in the precise indication of the aim of the 
spiritual exercises: that one should regulate his manner 
of living in accordance with the divine plan. We also 
find this practical spirit in the objects of the exercises : 
our vices must be eradicated and new virtues acquired. 
Again, this same practical spirit is displayed in the 
method of procedure. Gerard of Zutphen and Ignatius 
employed it with greater discretion and moderation than 
did Mombaer**. 

Loyola finished his “Spiritual Exercises’ in Paris, 
where he resided from 1528-1535. During his first 
year he attended the lectures at Montaigu. If he had not 
been able to become intimately acquainted with the works 
of Gerard Zerbolt at Manresa in Spain, he could now 
read them in Latin, for the library in the dormitory 
founded by Standonck contained chiefly the mystical 
productions read and composed by Zerbolt and by 
Groote’s other followers*®. Building upon the solid 
foundations of practical mysticism, and blending the 
views his own mind had evolved from past experiences 
and inspiration, and also from the perusal of the “Imita- 
tion’, the “Life of Christ” of Ludolph of Saxony, and 
Zerbolt’s “Spiritual Ascensions”’, Loyola drew up his 
final Latin version of his “Spiritual Exercises’. 

Loyola distinguished himself still further by founding 
a new brotherhood, just as Groote had done. This 
happened also in Paris, and also was in many respects 
a last fruit of the Christian Renaissance. That he must 
have enjoyed himself greatly in the library of the new 


272 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


dormitory cannot be doubted. If he found the works of 
Groote there, he must have read them with pleasure, and 
he would have been delighted with the ‘Treatise on 
Spiritual Exercises” by Radewijns, if he could have seen 
it, but this seems doubtful. Loyola cannot have failed to. 
make acquaintance with Standonck’s followers at Mon- 
taigu. Somebody must have told him about the four 
daughter-institutions in the Low Countries, two of which 
(those at Cambray and Mechlin) were now in charge 
of the Brethren of the Common Life. Thousands of little 
incidents must have linked him with the ideals of the 
Brethren of the Common Life. The Congregation of 
Montaigu became the stepping-stone, or rather, the in- 
termediary between Groote’s brotherhood and that of 
Ignatius Loyola®. 

At Montaigu, Loyola certainly had ample opportunity 
to study the constitution of Standonck’s new dormitory. 
It was Standonck’s burning desire to gain souls for God’s 
service that had impelled him to group those poor stu- 
dents about him. This love of God and neighbor had 
ennobled his character and greatly improved the nature 
of his rules, in the opinion of a man like Loyola. A 
similar zeal to win souls had caused Groote’s steps to 
hasten from city to city; it had induced him to assemble 
a small group of trusted followers. As time went on, 
these followers had won souls themselves. It had all 
been, they thought, for the glory of God and the reform- 
ation of the Church. Thus they had tried to do their 
work in God’s vineyard. And every day spent at Mon- 
taigu brought Loyola closer to Groote’s ideals. What 
he might have done if he had never seen the new dor- 
mitory with its poor students at Montaigu, we do not 
know. But his love of the ‘Imitation’ proves him to be 
a child of the Christian Renaissance, — it suggests the 
measure of his appreciation of Standonck’s life-work. 


‘ 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 273 


We may all the better understand Loyola’s attitude, 
if we bear in mind how he manipulated the mystical 
text-books of the Christian “Renaissance. Although 
Mombaer had built upon the “Spiritual Ascensions” of 
Zerbolt, and Garcia of Cisneros had succeeded him, 
Loyola, who used the latter’s work, did not build upon 
Garcia’s methods and theories, but turned to the simpler 
and more practical system of Zerbolt, adding to that 
system all those thoughts of Mombaer and Garcia which 
seemed most helpful to him. He acted in much the same 
way when he drew up the constitution for his new 
brotherhood. Standonck had unfortunately selected the 
most rigorous rules of his teachers at Gouda, adding 
many particulars himself. He believed strongly in the 
need of mortifying the flesh, interrupting his sleep, 
fasting more than was feasible, and dressing as shabbily 
as possible. Loyola saw the error in all this, and devoted 
a long chapter to the “preservation of bodily health’. 
Still, his constitution resembles that of Standonck in a 
good many ways, for his aims as reformer coincided 
almost entirely with those of the Flemish educator. 

What was the chief purpose of the Loyola’s new 
Brotherhood? To educate prospective reformers, recruit 
the clergy, and rate learning less than character. Learn- 
ing was to be employed merely as a tool. To win souls 
for Christ was Loyola’s leading aim. All education 
should be saturated with Christian ideals. In order to 
stimulate their faith, and to preserve their piety, Loyola’s 
followers were commanded to carry with them note- 
books, or “rapiaria’’, just as Groote’s disciples had done. 
If possible they should commit all the contents of these 
excerpt-books to memory. Loyola wanted his associates 
to use correct editions of the Bible and the Fathers, as 
the Brethren of the Common Life had done before him*’. 


274 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


The novices of Loyola’s order had to be watched care- 
fully wherever they were; very little freedom was 
allowed them. In all these ets the constitutions of 
Standonck and Loyola agree*®. 


There is an important resemblance skeen the aims. 


of Loyola’s followers and those of the Brethren of the 
Common Life. These men all saw the need for a tho- 
rough education and wanted good tools for their work. 
For them there was no such thing as too much knowledge ; 
consequently they achieved much. Standonck’s pupils, 
on the other hand, distrusted the rising humanism, 
wherefore they finally shrank behind the walls of their 
little world, — despised by almost all of the humanists. 
In this particular again Loyola agreed with the Brethren 
of the Common Life rather than with Standonck. It is 
of course very difficult to determine how far he con- 
sciously followed the men of Deventer and Zwolle. 
- During the seven years he spent at Paris he must have 
‘met a great many persons who had either been educated 
in the schools of the brethren or taught by their pupils. 
From 1500 till 1550 few elementary or secondary schools 
could be found in the Low Countries which were not 
conducted by a teacher trained by pupils of men like 
Hegius. The same can be said of Westphalia and of 
part of the Rhineland. That many of these men were 
now Protestants does not matter. They had much in 
common with Loyola in 1530. If Luther praised the 
Brethren of the Common Life, the early Jesuits did 
exactly the same thing*’, and for nearly the same reasons. 
The brethren were reformers; so were Luther and 
Loyola. The brethren wanted to win souls for Christ, 
and to imitate him, so also did Luther and Loyola, 
wherefore the latter’s disciples called themselves Jesuits. 
The Brethren of the Common Life labored hard between 


7 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 275 


1500 and 1520 to improve elementary and secondary 
education; after 1550 the Jesuits also did. Hence Mirae- 
us, a Belgian Jesuit, wrote: “For. does not the Society 
of Jesus, in imitation of the brethren, open schools 
throughout the whole world’*’? Those writers who 
cling to the old belief that Loyola’s new brotherhood was 
founded primarily to counteract the rising wave of 
Protestantism, are greatly mistaken”, for both the 
Reformation on its religious side and the Counter- 
Reformation owed their origins in part to the same 
religious movement: the ““New Devotion”, or Christian 
Renaissance. 


IV 


Simultaneously with the rise of the Counter-Reforma- 
tion a religious and educational movement developed in 
Alsace, which should also be treated in this chapter. For 
the Alsatians generally sided with the people in the Low 
Countries and France against Luther. The Christian 
Renaissance produced here a new theology, differing. 
from both Catholicism and Lutheranism. This new 
theology has come to be called Calvinism, as Calvi: 
placed upon it the stamp of his well-defined beliefs anc! 
made of it a systematic theology — something which 
Gansfort had not wished to evolve. 

How did the Christian Renaissance reach the people 
in Alsace? We can trace its influence from the Yssel 
country to Alsace along three lines. The first runs 
directly from Deventer to Schlettstadt and thence to 
Strasbourg and Geneva. It was drawn by Louis Dringen- 
berg, who brought the ideals of Groote, Cele, and the 
Brethren of the Common Life to the school of Schlett- 
stadt®*. The second line runs from Zwolle and Deventer 


276 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


through Liege and Paris to Strasbourg. The third one 
was made by the followers of Wessel Gansfort and 
Cornelius Hoen when they brought the latter’s treatise 
on the Lord’s Supper to Bucer, Oecolampadius, and 


Zwingli. This connects Alsace and Switzerland with 


Zwolle and Utrecht. But the main line runs through 
Paris. It was this line which united Alsace with the Low 
Countries and France in their rejection of Lutheranism. 

One of the men at Paris who influenced John Calvin 
was Lefevre. We have just seen him among the faithful 
sons of the Roman Catholic Church, but now we shall 
find him a precursor of the French Protestants. His 
Latin name is Faber Stapulensis, and his common name 
James Lefévre of Etaples. The views promulgated by 
him and by his disciples are sometimes referred to as 
the ‘“Fabrisian Protestantism’®*. From 1507 till 1520 
Lefevre spent most of his time in the abbey of Saint- 
Germain des Prés, and it is here that the “labrisian 
Protestantism” originated. As early as the year. 1509 
Lefévre wrote: ‘For a long time I had attached myself 
to human studies, and had scarcely tasted with my lips 
the divine studies: for they are sublime and ought not 
to be approached boldly. But already in the distance a 
light attracted my attention, ........ a light so brilliant 
that the human doctrines seemed darkness to me in 
comparison with the divine studies; the latter appeared 
to exhale a fragrance the sweetness of which nothing on 
earth could equal’. 

Three years afterwards (in 1512) appeared Lefévre’s 
commentary on the Epistles of Paul. In a way this book 
might be called the first Protestant book, according to 
Doumergue. The first thing that strikes one is the 
principle of the sovereign authority of God’s Word. 
Says Lefévre: “Do not follow the precepts and dogmas 


aS ee ee ee ed 





THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 277 


Otrunenc vc au. . There are men nowadays who teach 
the people a foolish piety instead of the doctrine of 
Christ. Of what use will all those fasts be to me, and 
why should I commit myself to those formal prayers of 
which the author is unknown to me, and which cast 
aside the apostolic precepts? Why should I die in a 
monkish garb after having dressed myself all my life 
in secular clothes? Nothing like it has been ordained by 
CPLISC. Woe oa The rest is perhaps more superstitious 
than religious......... Let us attach ourselves to Christ 
only and to the apostolic doctrine. For that suffices and 
is the first essential for obtaining salvation’. 

Then follows the second principle: justification by 
faith. Lefévre is very clear on this point. “It is almost 
profane to speak of the merit of works, particularly when 
face to face with God. For merit does not seem to ask 
for grace but demands what is due to it......... Let 
us not speak of the merit of our works, but extol the 
grace of God, which is everything”. This does not signify 
that works are in vain. Lefévre attempts to reconcile 
Paul with James. In failing to produce good works we 
lose the grace of justification. “The works which follow 
faith are the evidence of our living faith, as breath is the 
sign of our life’. In reality, justification consists neither 
in faith nor in works. God alone justifies. 

If we could find nothing else than this in Lefévre’s 
commentary, reasons Doumergue, we would still be 
justified in calling ‘it the first Protestant book. But it 
contains three other Protestant views. Lefévre holds 
that baptism brings no justification; it is merely the 
outward sign of our justification by faith in Christ. 
And what happens in the sacrament of the Eucharist, or 
Communion, is not a new sacrifice by Christ, a new sort 
of crucifixion, but merely a memorial service. Secondly, 


278 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Lefévre reproves the clergy for their immorality, de- 
mands less frequent and less rigid fasts, and disapproves 
of the Latin prayers which the common people cannot 
understand. And thirdly, he expresses the hope that God 
may soon provide his Church with a more virtuous body 
of clerics. Therefore, concludes Doumergue, Lefévre’s 
commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles, of the year 1512, is 
the first book of the “Fabrisian Protestantism’”’. 

But he fails to tell us that two years before this work 
appeared Lefévre visited the Brethren of the Common 
Life at Cologne’, that in 1510 he induced Badius 
Ascensius to print Mombaer’s “Rosary”, and that in 
1512 he edited a work of Ruysbroeck, in which two 
works some of his ‘Protestant’? views are expressed. 
He is silent also on the response made by Lefévre to 
those who reproved him for having recommended the 
works of Ruysbroeck, who had written everything in the 
vernacular. Lefévre referred those men to that wonder- 
ful work, called ‘‘Gersonico”’, or the “Imitation”. If 
that might be read in the vernacular, he reasoned, then 
Ruysbroeck’s works also might be*". Doumergue does 
not mention the works of Cusa, which Lefévre edited in 
1514, nor the disputations of Gansfort, where all those 
“Protestant” views are maintained. Doumergue cannot of 
course have seen the treatise written by Zerbolt in 1398, 
which insists that laymen should read the Bible in the 
vernacular and say their prayers in the vernacular®®. 

The so-called Protestant views of Lefévre sound so 
much like some of the thoughts expressed in the “Imita- 
tion’”’ and the works of Gansfort that one agrees with 
Renaudet that he must have acquired them during his 
visit in the brethren-house at Cologne. His friendship 
with Badius Ascensius and his love of Cusa’s mysticism 
also link him with the pupils of the Brethren of the 





THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 279 


Common Life. Of course his Commentary on the Epistle 
to the Romans was not the first Protestant book. Not 
one single view is expressed therein which cannot be 
found at least as plainly expressed in the “Imitation” 
and in Gansfort’s writings. Lefevre was a devout 
Catholic and much less of a Protestant than Gansfort 
had been, who died one year before the French reformer 
became interested in mystic religion (1489). He un- 
doubtedly owed much to the “Imitation”. Many a 
sentence in his Commentary seems almost to have been 
copied verbally from this work. And what did he do in - 
the brethren-house at Cologne? Was it a mere accident 
that caused his Commentary to appear two years after 
his visit? He now wished to reconcile James with Paul, 
as the brethren had been trying to do for more than a 
century — had the brethren perhaps shown him the 
works of Gansfort, where a long list of quotations is 
given from this same Epistle to the Romans, all of which 
speak of justification by faith? They were sowing the 
seeds of reform and personal religion in the hearts of 
thousands, and had produced the most widely circulated 
text-books on mystic religion. 

Lefévre’s. work leads to the rise of Calvinism. In 
1512 William Farel became Lefévre’s disciple, and in 
turn was to affect Calvin’s religious views. In 1516 
Lefévre published his second edition of Paul’s Epistle, 
and a treatise on Mary Magdalene, in which he displayed 
a very sound spirit of historical criticism. In 1523 ap- 
peared his French translation of the New Testament; 
in 1528 that of the Old Testament was completed. This 
work showed his desire to return to the Bible and cir- 
culate it among the people. He was unfortunately 
attacked by Béda, chief of the Sorbonne, principal of the 
College of Montaigu and Standonck’s favorite pupil. In 


280 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


this and many other respects Béda was deviating from 
the principles of the Christian Renaissance, while Lefevre 
was continuing Groote’s work. “Long live the Bible’! 


cried the Evangelicals. ‘Burn it’?! screamed the Sor-. 


bonne. Soon followed horrible persecutions. In 1523 
the first ‘heretic’? was burned, in 1529, another. These 
“heretics” had not gone much further than Lefévre, but 
had been less prudent’’. 

Calvin arrived at Paris in 1523. At first he followed 
the courses in the College of La Marche, but remained 
here only a very short time. From La Marche he went 
to Montaigu, obtained a room in the dormitory for well- 
to-do students, and quietly obeyed his teachers until early 
in the year 1528, when he was ready to leave Paris. 
Just as he was about to depart, another student came to 
take a place in the lecture room at Montaigu. It was 
Ignatius Loyola’. 

From Paris Calvin moved to Orleans, where he re- 
mained about one year; from Orleans he went to Bour- 
ges, and in the year 1530-1531 we find him at Noyon, 
the city of his birth. In the year 1531-1532 he was at 
Paris again. About his movements after this we are not 
quite so well informed. On May 10 and June 11 of the 
year 1532 we meet him at Orleans, on August 23, at 
Noyon, and soon thereafter at Paris. Here he probably 
attended some sermons by Gerard Roussel, a pupil of 
Lefevre, who was allowed to preach in public. During 
the course of the next year Calvin was ‘‘converted’””’. 

What was this “conversion” of Calvin? How much 
did he change his convictions and beliefs between 1528 
and 1534? The first changes are expressed in the speech 


of Nicholas Cop, the new rector of the university, which ~ 


was delivered on the Ist of November, 1533, and which 
was prepared by Calvin. Here the Gospel was held to 


" 


ay enti tee.) ees 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 281 


be divinely inspired; God delivered up his only begotten 
Son; in that act lies the sole hope of the forgiveness of 
sins. It is true, the word ‘‘Ave’”’ is still found here, but 
Calvin had to leave it in as a sort of formality. He 
wrote: “Ave gratia plena’’; this is not even a prayer of 
intercession, but a respectful greeting, which means: 
“We salute you, Oh Grace’, rather than: “We ask for 
your intercession, Grace’. And even Luther wrote as 
late as the year 1522: “Ave Maria”. 

The text selected for the discourse was “Blessed are 
the poor in spirit”. The orator contrasted the old faith 
with the new, the Law with the Gospel — the Law with 
its precepts and menaces without pardon, the Gospel, 
which does not constrain us by commandments and 
teaches the “immense benevolence of God toward us”. 
He vehemently condemned those leaders of the blind 
who were always disputing and quarreling with each 
other and never spoke of faith, of the love of God, the 
true good works. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. They shall inherit this 
kingdom, just as a child will some day inherit its father’s 
property — not through any merit of its own, except for 
the simple reason of heaving been docile and obedient. 
Paul is very clear on this point in his Epistle to the 
Romans. The Law does indeed mention God’s mercy, 
but insists on the fulfilment of all its commandments. 
The Gospel, on the other hand, promises a gratuitous 
forgiveness of sins, and justification. Every man who 
doubts this promise is incapable of leading a pious life 
and prepares himself for the punishment in hell. The 
Savior grants a cure only to those who know they are 
ill; only to those who believe is forgiveness of sins freely 
given. If we doubt this pardon, we are the most miser- 
abiecofy all mien... 2... . We cannot adore God in a 


282 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


doubtful frame of mind......... The most impious 
state of mind for a Christian is doubt. 

This certainty on the part of the believer, we are told, 
is the foundation of the doctrine of predestination. It is 
a corner-stone of Calvinism. Hence Calvin was a 
Calvinist as early as in 1533. But he wrote something 
bolder still. To the professors of the Sorbonne, who 
were chafing with anger and violent passions, he ad- 
dressed a message of peace and tranquillity: “Blessed are 
those who bring peace and take away the dissensions in 
the church’. And then he reminded them of Christ’s 
denunciation of the Pharisees. “Those who sow dis- 
sension are not disciples of Christ but miserable Phar- 
isees. Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the 
BAKGLOTAIUSTICe. Soh: bo Rejoice, for great shall be your 
reward in heaven’’*°’. 

The speech is interesting, but if Calvin actually was a 
Calvinist for having merely expressed the thoughts just 
mentioned, we would be quite justified in calling prac- 
tically all pious Catholics before him Calvinists. Groote, 
for example, had said in one of his sermons: “The old 
law was given by Moses, who promises temporal gain 
to its observers. His disciples are those who seek material 
advancement and riches. Therefore we find the blind 
man asking the Jews in the Gospel of John: ‘Do you also 
wish to become his disciples’? Whereupon they answered: 
“You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses’. 
Alas, how many more disciples does Moses have than 
Christ! For Christ taught humility and clemency, saying: 
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit. Learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly of heart’’’°*. Calvin also resembled 
Gansfort, who had written: “No one, unless he is blind, 
follows a foolish and blind leader. The Lord Jesus in- 
timates not only that the Pharisees are leaders character- 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 283 


ized by folly and blindness, but also that the very people 
that are led by them are like them. For he says: ‘Foolish 
and blind leaders of the blind’’’*°*. Gansfort had also 
written this: “Not as if infidelity alone was sin; for 
pride, envy, and falsehood, are so too. But this sin is 
spoken of, as if there were none but itself, because all 
other sins remain, so long as this remains, and all depart 
when this departs, so that when there is no more un- 
belief, all sins will be forgiven’”?”®. 

We are told by one of the best biographers of Calvin 
that the latter had used only the Vulgate until 1533, 
wherefore the Bible was a closed book to him before that 
date*’*. Protestant writers have almost universally re- 
garded Calvin’s residence at Montaigu as a dead loss of 
his time, but they are not justified in refusing to look 
for the Gospel and the Epistles of Paul in the Vulgate, 
which Calvin read there. We hear of the so-called 
Evangelicals preaching the Gospel. Does that signify 
that those who used the Vulgate did not preach the 
Gospel? Lefévre prepared a translation of the Vulgate; 
those who composed the “Imitation” used the Vulgate, 
and so did the Brethren of the Common Life*®’. Calvin 
also read Augustine at Montaigu; every hour spent in 
Standonck’s library brought him a little more closely in 
contact with Groote and his disciples. Here were the 
works of Zerbolt and Mombaer. Even if, as is not likely, 
he did not read here the treatise on the translation of the 
Bible by Zerbolt, and if he was never told by any one 
of Standonck’s pupils about the Brethren and Sisters 
of the Common Life, he was nevertheless indirectly 
influenced by them. And though his “Institutes of the 
Christian Religion’? appeared as late as the year 1535, 
Calvin must have taken several years to compose it, as 
Doumergue suggests*’*. At Montaigu he found at least 


284 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


some of the material for his “Institutes’. It is now 
apparent that this remarkable work is at least in part one 
of the last fruits of the “New Devotion’. 

It was in Alsace, however, that Calvin became a 
Calvinist and a great educator besides. He arrived at 
Strasbourg in 1538. In the year 1531-1532 he had 
attended in Paris the lectures of John Sturm; from 
1539-1541 he taught with Sturm in the University of 
Strasbourg, which was connected with Sturm’s celebrated 
“oymnasium”’. Here in his new environment he soon 
adopted those theological, philosophical, and sociological 
views which later were called Calvinistic. The Christian 
Renaissance had found a fertile soil in Alsace. First 
Louis Dringenberg had arrived from Deventer with the 
seeds of new religious ardor and advanced views on 
education’*®. From his school at Schlettstadt, which 
greatly surpassed the best one at Strasbourg, had gone 
forth a noble army of Christian humanists, who en- 
deavored to improve the old methods, to educate both 
mind and soul, without hurting the body. Wimpheling, 
the most famous educator among these, was called the 
foremost teacher in German lands, long before Melanch- 
ton had begun his life-work. All, or nearly all of these 
men had displayed very liberal views. They were serious 
scholars, and honest teachers, reliable, patient, and 
stead fast. 

The sixteenth century had brought other teachers and 
reformers from the Low Countries to Alsace. Among 
these, we meet again Hinne Rode, rector of the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Utrecht. In January, 1523, he 


had a talk with John Oecolampadius at Basel concerning. 


the letter on the Eucharist by Cornelius Hoen, who has 
been mentioned above**. Hoen had denied the bodily 
presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the com- 


“4 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE ~— 285 


munion service. The way in which he had treated this 
subject had greatly impressed Oeccolampadius*”. In 
November, 1524, Rode also talked this matter over with 
Bucer, who was impressed with the new doctrine, and 
shortly afterwards praised Rode highly, saying that he 
did not know a single theologian who could equal the 
Dutch reformer, not excluding Luther. Although Rode 
considered Luther as his teacher in a certain way, he 
owed more to Wessel Gansfort’s teachings. Bucer said 
that he was surprised that Rode and his friends did not 
give more attention to Gansfort. When Rode was his 
guest he had tried to defend Luther’s views on the Holy . 
Supper against that of Hoen and Rode, but he had soon 
become aware that he could not meet their arguments. 
Consequently he had relinquished Luther’s view of the 
bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament of the 
Eucharist*®. In 1525 Rode visited Zwingli. The Swiss 
reformer had already come to about the same view as 
that entertained by Hoen, owing partly to the influence 
of Erasmus, who in turn had been taught it by Gans- 
fort’**. But after Rode’s explanation (Rode seems to 
have become a great authority on this subject) Zwingli 
became clear on this point. Before the month of October, 
1525, he published Hoen’s treatise at Ztirich*”’. 

While Rode was “converting’”’ Bucer and Oecolampa- 
dius, Calvin absorbed quite a different sort of theology 
from that of Rode and Bucer in his dormitory at Mon- 
_ taigu. He studied first of all the doctrines of the Fathers 
and the medieval saints, before he ventured to differ 
somewhat from them. The Christian Renaissance itself 
had gone through exactly the same experiences in the 
Netherlands, when from 1380 until 1450 Groote’s 
followers had built their ideas solely upon the Bible and 
other works approved by the Church, without anxiously 


286 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


or tenaciously clinging to any doctrines of minor im- 
portance. When Gansfort evolved his new views on 
indulgences and purgatory, they by no means considered 
him a heretic. Gansfort’s views on predestination, justi- 
fication by faith, and the universal priesthood of all 
believers did not shock them at all. They employed 
Hinne Rode, and were highly extolled by Luther in 1532. 
After 1520 they lost their sense of unity; part of them 
joined the followers of Luther; others remained true to 
the doctrines of the Church, and still others were pre- 
paring a mixture of Lutheran and Calvinistic theology: 
Hinne Rode was more of a “Calvinist” in 1520 than 
Calvin was in 1535. Still, all of these brethren had studied 
the same Bible, the same Fathers, the same medieval saints 
and doctors. They had avoided writers like Eckhardt, 
and had built their mysticism chiefly on the works of 
French and Italian mystics — this was true, at least, of 
the brethren in the Low Countries and of the missionaries 
of the Windesheim Congregation in France. Calvin, for 
more than four years in succession, absorbed the very 
same kind of mysticism at Montaigu. Fortunately for 
him he had to use Standonck’s books. He was fourteen 
when he came to Montaigu, and left at eighteen. He 
became a great reformer and the views expressed in his 
first edition of the “Institutes”, in 1535, differ but very 
little from the tenets of Catholicism disseminated by the 
Christian Renaissance. They are certainly much less 
“Calvinistic” than the views entertained by Martin Bucer, 
whom he was soon to meet in Strasbourg. 

Bucer, one of Schlettstadt’s chief products, became the 
leading Protestant reformer in South Germany™*®. In 
Strasbourg he and his friend William Capito organized 
meetings to advance the cause of Protestantism’’. Lang 
calls Bucer the pietist among the reformers™*. He was 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE 287 


the man who developed the two central ideas of Calvin- 
ism: the doctrines of predestination and that of justifica- 
tion by faith'’®. One of Bucer’s pupils at Strasbourg was 
Farel’”, the first reformer in France to venture beyond 
Lefévre’s “Protestantism’’**. In 1538 Calvin arrived at 
Strasbourg, to become John Sturm’s assistant, and to 
follow Bucer’s leadership’. 

Do these facts perhaps seem surprising? They are 
brought out fully in the works of Lang and Anrich. And 
among those acquainted with the history of the Christian 
Renaissance in general, and with the school of Dringen- 
berg at Schlettstadt in particular, they excite no surprise. 
Schlettstadt, like Deventer, Zwolle, and Utrecht, had 
begun with the views of Groote, Cele, and Zerbolt. Like 
Zwolle, Deventer, and Utrecht, it finally became Calvin- 
istic. When Calvin left Strasbourg, in 1541, he took 
with him the local views on the organization of the 
Church, on the use of the Psalms during the church 
services, on the officially recognized feasts, dropping 
most of those adhered to by the Roman Catholic Church; 
on the views on the relations between Church and State, 
on justification by faith, on the Lord’s Supper, on pre- 
destination, and on the institution of elders and deacons 
in accordance with the custom of the primitive Church’”*. 
Most of these views were arrived at in the attempt to 
return to the practice of the Apostles. They are the 
logical outcome of the great underlying aim of the 
Brethren of the Common Life: a Christian Renaissance, 
a revival of the Apostolic Church. Suffice it to say here 
that Bucer had been born and educated at Schlettstadt, 
where for thirty-six years in succession Louis Dringen- 
berg had taught the principles of the Christian Renais- 
sance. Bucer had read Hoen’s treatise on the Eucharist 
and the works of Wessel Gansfort; he even suggested 


288 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


that Rode should study Gansfort more, and he con- 
sidered himself a pupil of Gansfort. He went just one 
step further than Rode, becoming what we should call a 
Calvinist, and he made Calvin a Calvinist. Then Calvin, 


with more profound mind and greater vital force, sur- — 


passed Bucer, his teacher, clarified Bucer’s views, and 
became the founder of the new church that bears his 
name. 


V 


During the opening years of the sixteenth century the 
study of the classics was introduced at Strasbourg. Here 
Jacob Wimpheling,. pupil of Louis Dringenberg**, 
founded a ‘‘gymnasium”’ in the year 1501. In 1507 the 
cathedral school was reformed under the supervision of 
Jerome Gebweiler, who had been one of Dringenberg’s 
successors at Schlettstadt. Wimpheling and his friend 
Geiler of Kaisersberg directed the work**®. Gradually 
the methods introduced by Dringenberg and his pupils 
at Schlettstadt were copied and partly improved upon at 
Strasbourg. But not until the arrival of John Sturm did 
the Alsatian metropolis attract international attention. 

Sturm had been born at Sleiden in the Eifel, a 
mountain range situated between Cologne and Trier. At 
an early age he was sent to the school of the Brethren of 
the Common Life at Liege, where he remained till 
1524*°. This was the “Hieronymian gymnasium”, 
which he imitated in his school at Strasbourg in 1538**’. 
From 1524 till 1527 Sturm studied in the “School of the 
Three Languages” at Louvain, which had been founded 
on Erasmus’ advice in 1518. Here he taught Latin and 
Greek from 1527-1529. Then he moved to Paris, where 


ie 
pac 


oP. Tk ee we eT, 





THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE — 289 


he remained as long as possible, but having joined the 
Protestants, he left Paris early in the year 1537**. 

Sturm arrived at Strasbourg with a definite plan. The 
magistrates of this city had invited him to found a new 
school. Now that the church there had undergone a 
transformation, which they considered a reform, the city 
council decided to reform the schools as well. Already 
there were two Latin schools; one directed by John 
Sapidus, the former rector of the school at Schlettstadt, 
and the other by Otto Brunfels, who also taught by the 
method of Dringenberg and his pupils’”®. Both men had 
been trying for years to combine the acquisition of 
knowledge with improvement in character. John Sturm 
was expected to continue their policy. He addressed the 
magistrates in the following manner: “Unless the crowd 
of students is so large that they cannot be accommodated 
in one building, it is best to assemble them all in one 
place. At Liége, Deventer, Zwolle, and Wesel instruction — 
is given in one building, with a number of classes. Hence 
better students are turned out by these schools than by 
others, called Academies. And it often happens that 
those who there have been ably and piously taught are 
spoiled in those other gymnasia......... When I was 
at Liége, dissension arose among the teachers, and some 
of them began to teach separately. If they had had 
their way, that Hieronymian gymnasium would have 
perished’’*®°. . 

Sturm advised. the magistrates to get a school of the 
kind conducted at Liége, Deventer, Zwolle, and Wesel, 
where the Brethren of the Common Life were at that 
time in nearly sole charge of the management of the 
schools. After the year 1500 they had become more 
interested in education than in anything else, for the 
invention of printing seriously interfered with their 


290 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


original purpose of trying to make their living chiefly 
by copying religious writings. In 1530 there must have 
been several hundred of their pupils attending the 
universities of Paris, Louvain, Cologne, and Heidelberg, 


where they were usually distinguished for their learning.. 


We have only mentioned a few of them here, but there 
must have been many in the scholarly world from 1500 
till 1530. Hegius alone had 2200 pupils at one time. 
Cele had had 1000 nearly a century before him. If the 
schools of the Brethren of the Common Life at Delft, 
Utrecht, Groningen, Liége, Brussels, Ghent, Cambray, 
Munster, Rostock, Culm, Marburg, Hulsbergen, Nyme- 
gen, and Cassel, and the schools at Deventer, Zwolle, 
Wesel, Emmerich, Magdeburg, Hildesheim, and Mechlin 
together sent one hundred students (a very conservative 
estimate) to the universities each year, and fifty teachers 
to reform other schools; if we add to these the many 
thousands of other students who received part of their 
elementary and secondary education in these same places 


between 1400 and 1500, and who were in touch with the — 


brethren; and if we add the multitude of pupils these 
schools must have had, we may well wonder how any 
student at Paris, Louvain, Cologne, Heidelberg, or Basel 
could have escaped the ideas and the influence of the 
Brethren of the Common Life. 

And most of these men had a message. Sturm for 
example must have talked a good deal about that ‘Hier- 
onymian Gymnasium” of Liége, when he was lecturing 
at Paris; Badius Ascensius cannot always have refrained 
from saying a word or two about the ‘“Hieronymian 
School” he had attended at Ghent; Standonck had his 
followers; and so did Lefévre, who had watched the 
brethren at Cologne in 1510. Then, there was that in- 
stitution founded on Erasmus’ advice at Louvain, the 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCEIN FRANCE — 291 


first one of its kind in Europe — probably Erasmus was 
inspired by Gansfort, who long before his birth had 
studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. King Francis I 
modeled the “College of France’’ after its pattern. We 
hear of Mathurin Cordier introducing reforms in the 
college of Sainte-Barbe*”, like Sturm, building his pro- 
gram upon the work of the Brethren of the Common 
Life**’. It may well be that many similar reforms in the 
various colleges at Paris were merely the repercussion 
of the reforms instituted elsewhere, for wherever we 
find among humanists and educators a desire to employ 
learning as a tool only, and to stress the fundamental 
need of religious instruction, we can often trace this 
back to the principles of the Christian Renaissance. 

Most of the elementary and secondary schools in 
Transalpine Europe needed a reform. Instruction in these 
schools was usually personal. In many of them the pupils 
of all the various grades were assembled in one room, 
and even where on account of larger numbers the pupils 
were divided into classes, they were for two or three 
hours a day grouped in one room again. Sometimes 
several grades were combined, There was often a con- 
siderable number of children belonging to no particular 
grade at all. Much time as a rule was devoted to the 
rehearsal of lessons that had never been explained. Not 
seldom were the pupils left to select the lessons them- 
selves. Every day exactly the same subjects were taught 
as during the preceding day. Only in the afternoon a 
slight difference was made between summer and winter 
programs. The method of instruction was exceedingly 
monotonous. The pupils were kept busy from six in the 
morning till four in the afternoon, with an interval of 
one hour for dinner. Such was generally the method 
adhered to in the schools**. 


292 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


The schools conducted by the followers of Groote 
differed considerably from the ordinary kind. In the 
first place the school hours were shortened about one 
half. If Cele and his successors could teach the same 


subject matter in 314 hours which was done in 9 hours — 


by most other teachers, their method must indeed have 
caused much favorable comment. They realized that a 


child’s mind cannot concentrate very long on any one 


subject. Then there were the dormitories of the Brethren 
of the Common Life, and the lodging of students in the 
homes of the female followers of Groote, some of whom 
lodged as many as eight boys at a time. From these 
admirable features one can partly deduce the reason why 
hundreds of boys flocked to Zwolle from Cologne, Trier, 
Liége, and Utrecht; from Flanders, Brabant, Holland, 
Westphalia, Saxony, Cleve, and Gelderland. Cele’s suc- 
cess must not be underestimated, for the schools of Trier, 
Cologne, Liege, and Utrecht had been regarded for cen- 
turies as the best in the Rhineland and the Low Countries. 
Trier was the oldest city in Germany; Cologne had behind 


it a civilization introduced by the Romans; while the . 


cathedral schools of Liége and Utrecht had always 
provided the best instruction given in their bishoprics. 
Here princes and bishops had received their education 
long before Zwolle became a town of importance. And 
now all of a sudden Zwolle surpassed in education the 
glory of these four ancient cities! 

Discipline was maintained effectively. While in very 
many schools the parents of the pupils would often in- 
tervene, thus weakening the authority of the teacher, 
Cele and his successors were the sole masters. Absences 


and delinquencies were punished. The infliction of cor-~ 


poral punishment was not done away with, but the 
disciples of Groote were not cruel or harsh. With them 





THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE — 203 


the force of love came foremost in all the relations of 
life. The sources do not inform us how often or in what 
cases the pupils were punished, but they do tell us what 
sort of a man Cele was, and we are also quite well 
acquainted with the lives of Cele’s friends at Deventer 
and Zwolle. Pupils who would not behave were simply 
sent away from school. 

The whole school was divided into eight classes, and 
each class was subdivided into groups of eight or ten 
pupils. The six lower classes were each taught by one 
teacher during the whole day, while in the two highest 
grades each subject was taught by a separate teacher. 
The usual length of time needed to pass from one 
grade into the next was one year. Very capable students 
were advanced more rapidly; each teacher was authorized 
to examine every one of his pupils from time to time. 
The instruction given in the two lowest classes was en- 
trusted to the best pupils found in the highest grades, 
or to those who had completed the whole course. Each 
subdivision of eight or ten pupils was in charge of one 
advanced student, who had to keep order. 

Another remarkable innovation was the introduction 
of religious instruction, given in addition to the usual 
subjects, called “ethics, philosophy, grammar, and logic’’. 
Particularly on Sundays-and on the very numerous holi- 
days the pupils were “taught to love and fear God, to 
search the Scriptures, and to lead virtuous lives’. Every 
one, therefore, of the thousands of school boys educated 
at Deventer and Zwolle, as well as in.most of the other 
schools conducted by the brethren, was taught the funda- 
mentals of the Christian Renaissance. On Sundays and 
holidays they were to listen for one hour in the morning 
to the reading and explanation of a definitely assigned 
portion of the Epistles of the New Testament. In the 


294 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


afternoon an hour was devoted to a selection from the 
Gospels, and in the evening another hour was given to 
a selection from the Old or New Testament. The boys 
were instructed to write down the most helpful thoughts 


in their note-books. The text from the Gospels and the 


Epistles formed the bases, to which were added the 
comments and explanations of various Church Fathers. 
Thus the boys obtained a select list of texts from the 
Bible, grouped under various headings, and accompanied 
with explanations. There would be, for example, the 
subject of salvation. Under this heading the words of 
Christ, the Apostles, and the prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment would be grouped. Nothing like it had ever been 
attempted in any medieval school. 

In other schools, if any religious instruction was given 
it was confined to the explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, 
the Ten-Commandments, and the Apostles’ Creed. In 
Cele’s school the Bible itself was studied, and not only 
on Sundays, but also on week days. Again, the character 
of men like Cele was such that even when they were 
teaching ordinary subjects, their whole trend of thought 
was directed to the divine. The subject matter was always 
made subservient to the practical use it might have for 
the pupil in the future. Cele also dictated prayers to the 
student body, both in the Low Dutch vernacular and in 
Latin. For about forty years he taught at Zwolle, sending 
out hundreds of pupils, back to their homes again, or to 
the universities or the monasteries™*. 

One of the boys who was taught by this new method 
was Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. We might repeat 
here that after he left Deventer he could no more shake 
the ideals of Groote’s followers out of his head than he 
could change the color of his skin. Though he never 
became a teacher, he was an influential educator. In his 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE — 295 


“De Ratione Studii” he set forth very ably the views he 
had partly received at Deventer. Erasmus proposed a 
complete reform of the Latin schools. Greek literature 
should be taught just as well as Latin. Care should be 
taken that not too much time be devoted to the study 
of grammar. The pupils should read the sources for 
themselves. Particularly such writings should be selected 
for perusal as would provide interesting reading for the 
pupils. Many books of this kind contained valuable in- 
formation. The works of Plato and Aristotle could be 
used as text-books in ancient philosophy. Origen, 
Chrysostom, and Basil would be excellent guides in the 
field of Biblical learning. Geography could be taught by 
Ptolemy or Pliny. In this way the pupils would also 
learn something about history, natural sciences, music, 
and architecture. The best way to teach rhetoric was to 
let students write compositions on subjects in which they 
were interested. Dialogues and little dramas were very 
helpful. Some of the scenes in Homer, Virgil, and other 
poets could be acted quite well by the boys. Erasmus 
urged teachers to give practice and exercises as much as 
possible. Whenever an occasion could be found to praise 
or encourage the pupils, the teacher should never hesitate 
to use it. Erasmus wrote here in a pious and kindly 
fashion, as if inspired by the feeling of ‘‘good will toward 
men”. The most useful literary productions would thus 
be studied. For centuries they had been buried under the 
constantly accumulating dust of neglect. In one of Eras- 
mus’ best works he insists that moral training should not 
be based on the works of Thomas Aquinas or other subtle 
works of scholastic disputation, but chiefly on the Bible. 
In the place of scholasticism he puts the Gospel. How 
well he had digested the principles of the Christian 
Renaissance appears from the little prayer-book he com- 


2096 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


posed for the benefit of Colet’s school at London**’. 
Erasmus certainly did not acquire his views from any 
English reformers. The time has now come to inquire 


how much the reformers at London and Oxford were. 


indebted to books like the ‘Imitation’, and to educators 
like Cele, Hegius, and Erasmus. This inquiry is bound 
to be fruitful of results. 

John Sturm undoubtedly read the ‘““De Ratione Studii” 
of Erasmus. He may have read it at Liége, for a very 
handsome edition was printed by Froben at Basel in 


1521**°. In 1538 he drew up a new program for his new ~ 


“gymnasium” at Strasbourg, called “De Litterarum 
Ludis, recte aperiendis”’. In this program he draws a 
distinction between two periods in the student’s life. 
During the first period all his studies are obligatory, and 
he attends the “gymnasium’’; during the second period 
he may select whatever subjects he likes best. The first 
period lasts nine, the second five years. The pupils are 
admitted to the “gymnasium” at the age of seven. The 
“gymnasium” is divided into nine grades or classes. 
Advancement depends chiefly on the pupils’ ability and 
diligence. Sturm suggests that poor school boys who 
distinguish themselves should be given scholarships, as 
was done with the pupils of Cele and the Brethren of the 
Common Life. One may expect more of such boys, he 
thinks, than of the sons of rich parents who see no need 
of exerting themselves. Parents are urged to cooperate 
with the teachers. The boys should be kept in good 
health; their food should be wholesome and their clothes 
neat. The virtue of modesty is extolled by Sturm. Pupils 
must show due respect for parents, teachers, and aged 
persons. As for the final aim of education, it is not so 
much the acquisition of learning, as the practical use to 
be derived therefrom. “The best school”, writes Sturm, 


s « 
et a a ey 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 297 


“is that where equal care is bestowed on intellectual and 
on. moral training......-... If one’s actions do not 
harmonize with his words, of what use is his learning’’? 
The two final ends are personal religion (pietas), and 
wisdom (sapientia). But Sturm neglected Biblical 
training, though Bible stories were discussed. Catechism 
was taught on Saturdays, and on Sundays the teachers 
and pupils went to church together. Further than that 
Sturm did not go**’. 

John Calvin founded a similar school at Geneva in 
1559. From 1539 to 1541 he had given instruction in 
Sturm’s school, and in 1556 he had once more visited 
Strasbourg. In the Geneva school there was a division, 
not into 9 classes, as Sturm had made, or into 8, which 
was Cele’s number, but into 7. Then there were also 
examinations, or rather promotions of the pupils based 
on the progress they were making individually; also the 
subdivision into groups of ten each. But in several im- 
portant particulars Calvin approached Cele’s method 
much more closely than did Sturm. In the first place, 
Calvin opened school every morning with prayer. This 
prayer was found in the pupils’ catechism, and was read 
by each one in turn. School closed with the Lord’s Prayer 
and a short prayer of thanksgiving. At half past eleven 
the second period opened with the singing of a Psalm, 
and at the end of the third, three pupils recited the Lord’s 
Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Command- 
ments. Every Saturday morning was devoted to a 
repetition of what had been learned during the preceding 
five days. The followers of Groote and Cele made much 
of repetition; so did Calvin. During the last hour on 
Saturdays that part of the catechism was explained which 
was to be treated in church the following day. During 
the week preceding communion services one of the 


2098 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


ministers exhorted the boys in the school room to “fear 
the Lord and preserve mutual love’. In school the Latin 
and Greek writers received most attention, but the pupils 
in the sixth grade studied the Gospel of Luke every 
Saturday afternoon from three till four o’clock, and- 
those in the highest grade studied an Epistle of the New 
Testament. To rhetoric much less time was devoted than 
other humanists insisted on. Prizes were awarded to the 
two best students of each class, as was done by the 
Brethren of the Common Life at Liége and by Sturm 
at Strasbourg’*’. 

One day John Sturm came to Dillingen, a small town 
situated in the Lower Rhine valley. It was twenty-two 
years after he had founded his school at Strasbourg. He 
investigated carefully a school in that place conducted by 
the Jesuits. The methods employed were wonderfully 
like his, he saw, and concluded that the Jesuits must have 
copied their school from his. This view has been enter- 
tained by many other educators after him. But no one 
has yet been able to prove it correct**®, and it is probable 
that during the first half of the sixteenth century 
the reforms introduced into the schools of both the 
Lutherans and the Calvinists, and also of the Jesuits 
were the continuation of Cele’s work at Zwolle**®. 
Loyola and Calvin had both studied at Montaigu. They 
were both familiar with Standonck’s work, and with 
writings produced in the Yssel country. They and their 
friends knew well what had been going on in the Low 
Countries. Calvin married Idelette de Bure of Liége in 
1540***. Loyola visited Antwerp several times, and 
probably knew some of the Brethren of the Common 
Life at Ghent. Thus Flanders, Brabant, and Liége, 
provinces of the present kingdom of Belgium, became 
the intermediary between the Yssel country and Paris, 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE = 299 


and from Paris the influence of the Christian Renaissance 
radiated in different directions, touching Alsace, Spain, 
and England. From England, Holland, and France it 
was to reach the shores of America. In short, we may 
safely conclude that the “New Devotion” or Christian 
Renaissance, though it lost its cohesive force shortly 
after the year 1520, still had enough strength left to 
mould the schools not only of the Protestants, but also 
of their opponents. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


“T dare not indulge in great wishes”, wrote Luther in 
1532 to the rector of the Brethren of the Common Life 
at Herford, “but if all other things were in as good a - 
condition as the brethren-houses, the Church would be | 
much too blessed even in this life. Your dress and other 
commendable usages do not injure the Gospel, but are 
rather of advantage to it, assailed as in these days it is 
by reckless and unbridled spirits who know only how to 
destroy, but not to build up”. 

And in the same year the German reformer addressed 
the magistrates of Herford in the following manner: 
“Inasmuch as the Brethren and Sisters were the first to 
begin the Gospel among you, lead a creditable life, have 
a decent and well-behaved congregation, and at the same 
time faithfully teach and hold the pure word, may I 
affectionately entreat your worships not to permit any 
dispeace or molestation to befall them, on account of 
their still wearing the religious dress, and observing old 
and laudable usages not contrary to the Gospel? For 
such monasteries and brethren-houses please me beyond 
measure. Would to God that all monastic institutions 
were like them! Clergymen, cities, and countries would 
then be better served, and more prosperous than they 
now are’, 

These statements from the pens of Luther and Melanch- 
ton were written at a comparatively late date by men 
who led in the revolt from Rome. They seem to imply 

300 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 301 


that Europe of the sixteenth century owed much to 
the Brethren of the Common Life, the exponents of 
the principles of the “New Devotion”, or Christian 
Renaissance. 


Far back into the past go the roots’ of the “New 
Devotion”. From Plato and Aristotle, from Socrates and 
Seneca the deepest roots derived their nourishment; from 
the teachings of Christ and his disciples the movement 
obtained its profoundest principles, while the Church 
Fathers and the “saints’’ of medieval Europe provided 
most of the rest. The German mystics, on the other hand, 
contributed comparatively little: Groote had energetically 
warned his followers against the works of Eckhardt; he 
cared very little for Tauler, and Suso’s “Horologium”’ 
he ascribed to Anselm. Groote’s followers at Deventer, 
Zwolle, and. Windesheim do not even mention the ‘“‘Ger- 
man Theology’, that famous text-book of mysticism, 
which Luther at one time ranked next to the Bible and 
Augustine. These are facts of the highest significance, 
for they help explain why in the sixteenth century a line 
of demarcation was drawn between the Protestants east 
and west of the Rhine. 

Contemporaries of note realized much of Groote’s 
greatness and left.testimony of his influence. One of 
them says that Gerard Groote of Deventer was the 
“Fountain of the New Devotion’, and “illuminated his 
whole country with his life, words, ways, and doctrine’. 
“All religious fervor in this country”, says one Nether- 
landish biographer, “for one hundred miles around was 
caused by master Gerard’. And another wrote on the 
day of his death: “Gerard Groote, with his holy life and 


302 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


example, has enlightened the whole bishopric of Utrecht”. 
William Vornken, prior of Windesheim, exclaimed: “Oh 
happy day on which that great Gerard was born amongst 
us, for he was the fount and source whence flowed the 
waters of salvation to our land, so that what before his 
time had been parched became a pool, and the thirsty 
land, springs of water’. And John Vos of Heusden, 
greatest of Windesheim’s priors, said on his death-bed: 
“Groote was the first father of this our reformation, the 
source and origin of the New Devotion; he was an 
apostle in this country, who kindled fires of religious 
fervor in the cold hearts of men, and drew them to 
God”. 

These fifteenth century historians did not know how 
great Groote’s influence really was. However significant 
and strong their statements may appear, they were only 
thinking of that limited circle of Groote’s disciples who 
had come into personal contact with the reformer. Only 
those can appreciate the influence of Groote who are in 
a position to follow the labors of the Brethren of the 
Common Life, of Cele and his pupils, and of writers 
like Gansfort and Erasmus, through later history in the 
Low Countries, Germany, and France. It is not enough 
to follow Groote’s career as preacher. One must study 
the relations he had with Ruysbroeck, the friendship with 
Cele, the way in which he attacked the clergy, the im- 
pression he made on the common people, the constitution 
he prepared for the Sisters of the Common Life, and the 
whole history of the Brotherhood of the Common Life 
and the Windesheim Congregation. Even this will not 
suffice. For there remains the work of men like Gansfort 
and Erasmus; of teachers like Dringenberg at Schlett- 
stadt, Hegius at Deventer, and Murmellius at Miinster; 
and of all those scholars and reformers who were directly 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 303 


or indirectly influenced by the “New Devotion’, such as 
Cusa, Luther, Zwingli, Sturm, Calvin, and Loyola. 

In trying to define the “New Devotion’, or Christian 
Renaissance, one must of course be very cautious not to 
ascribe any events or results to this movement which 
were caused by some other movement. Moreover, it.is , 
exceedingly difficult to determine exactly how it reacted | 
on the religion, education, art, science, politics, and — 
sociology of medieval Europe. For the minds of Groote’s 
disciples were not all the same; some followers retained | 
ideas almost intact, others transformed most of the im- 
pressions made on them. An intellectual movement can- 
not be treated as something individual with a personality 
of its own. But still, bearing all these facts in mind, we 
are quite able to distinguish the essence and course of 
the movement inaugurated by Groote. 

The Christian Renaissance may be said to have had its 
birth in Groote’s first sermons, preached early in 1380; © 
and we make no great mistake in believing the movement | 
to have lost its cohesive character after 1520. Groote - 
had experienced his conversion in 1374. He gave up his ° 
prebends very soon after his conversion, and in the same 
year, 1374, ceded the use of his ancestral home to a | 
small group of poor women. In 1375 or 1376 he made | 
a trip to Ruysbroeck’s monastery near Brussels, accom- — 
panied by Cele. These events may be called the prelimi- 
nary activities, for in 1374 or 1377 Groote did not yet 
consider himself ready to preach the Gospel to the people 
at large. First he had to “overcome his lower self”, 
which he did in the monastery of Monnikhuizen near 
Arnhem, where he spent a little over two years (1377- 
1379). Not that he felt he had then completely mastered 
“the flesh”, but he thought that he ought not to spend 
more time in a monastery. Five years he had given to 


atl 


304 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


preparing for the task now before him. That was 
enough. : 

Groote knew more about the Church in 1380 than 
Luther did in 1517. He had traveled a great deal, and 
had been sent by the city of Deventer to Avignon to 
negotiate with the pope; he had studied at Paris, and had 
even taught there afterwards. He knew good and bad 
monks, and had held two prebends when living at 
Cologne. How he must have regretted his life at Cologne! 
Here, we remember, he spent large sums of money 
acquired from the people at Aachen and Utrecht, whose 
spiritual needs had left him unmoved. 

Groote had tried to reform his own mode of life before 
he preached the message of reform to others. Now he 
could speak in public and with success, not as the Phari- 
sees of old, but as.an honest reformer. “Through his 
labors”, we read in a letter addressed to the bishop of 
Utrecht, “there are many virgins set as flowers in the 
field of the Lord; lives of chaste widowhood and volun- 
tary poverty, as an harvest therein; renunciation of the 
world, acts of restitution and many other fruits sprung 
from the seed of Ecclesiastical and Catholic doctrine, and 
the wickedness of usury and disordered lust have ceased 
from the land of Zeeland’. 

No other province in Holland is so far removed from 
the Yssel country as Zeeland, and yet this eye-witness 
informs us that due to Groote’s preaching “the wicked- 
ness of usury and disordered lust have ceased from Zee- 
land”. It is no wonder that the “‘Pharisees’’ did not rest 
until Groote was commanded to stop preaching. 

Now that Groote could not preach any more, he turned 
to education, the translation of the Bible and hymns, and 
the foundation of a new brotherhood. In imitation of 
Christ he selected twelve apostles, and was followed by — 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 305: 


a host of disciples. When he was about to die he 
appointed a “comforter”. Florentius Radewijns certainly 
did comfort a great many poor people. Rarely in the 
annals- of Christian charity do we meet with such a 
comforter! How significant that Thomas a Kempis® 
begins the first chapter of his biography of Radewijns 
with the following sentence: “Our Lord and Master 
Jesus Christ, the Flower of all virtue and of all knowl- 
edge, began in humility and meekness that rule of his 
life which he handed down to his disciples to be observed 
as their law and pattern, saying: ‘Learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your 
souls’”’. A little further on we read the following 
passages: ‘He is called Florentius as one that gathered 
flowers together (Flores colligens), because he gathered 
together with him in his house many clerks and brethren 
who were in the flower of their age. These brethren 
Florentius ruled with such discipline and taught with 
such fervency of spirit that this house was a school of 
heavenly training, having therein a mirror of holiness, 
a garniture of moral virtues, a pattern of goodness, a 
door to admit the poor, a place of meeting for clerks, of 
instruction for lay folk, of refuge for the devout, and 
for the beginning and carrying forward of every good 
thing. In this house many honorable and learned men 
first conceived the spirit of devotion, and like bees laden 
with honey went far afield from the full hive to spread 
fertility in divers places......... Fitting enough is the 
name of Radewin as meaning “The Divine Radiance’, 
and by this name Christ is rightly signified, for he is the 
Brightness of the Father who doth illumine the world 
with the light of his wisdom......... He sent forth 
also his apostles like beams of the true Sun to preach his 
word in all the world and give a good example to all the 


306 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


faithful, saying to them: ‘So let your light shine before 
men that they may see your good works and glorify your 
Father who is in Heaven’ ’”*. 

Whatever one may think of the character of this new 
light, its beams were plainly visible in the Yssel country. 
“At this time’, writes Rudolph Dier of Muiden, the 
librarian of the brethren at Deventer, “many burghers 
of Deventer and people from the neighboring country 
were wont to visit Florentius and his brethren, asking 
how they might save their souls, confessing their sins. 
Especially on holidays they would gather in the ‘House 
of Florentius’ to listen to the reading of the Scriptures, 
which was done and is still being done [1458] in the 
people’s own language; also to hear the fervent addresses 
by’ the. brethrens. :.5).0. And almost all the devout 
burghers had in their houses one poor school boy whom 
they supported for the Lord’s sake. Lambertus van 
Galen always had at least eight boys in his home, sent 
by the brethren of the ‘House of Florentius’. He con- 
structed a special dining room for these boys. Still all 
he possessed was his house and the money earned with 
his hands. Besides these poor boys he received three or 
four others who paid him for his services. He was 
accustomed on holidays to discuss with his boys the 
nature of vices and virtues, and the brethren would often 
come to dine with them. 

“At this time many priests, attracted by the goodly 
report of Florentius’ virtues, came from far and near to 


submit themselves to his guidance. Particularly from 
“Westphalia large numbers arrived, who opened their 


' hearts. Not a few of these had formerly been excom- 
Pinicated ae sO cu, One excommunicated priest from 
Westphalia was given a room in the old vicarage of 
Florentius, where, being excommunicated, he had to eat 


¢ 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 307 


his meals all alone. Another priest from Westphalia 
lived with the brethren in the building behind the ‘New 
House’. He often sent letters to his friends in West- 
phalia, urging them to despise the world. 

“One day Wermbold, rector of the Sisters of the 
Common Life at Utrecht, came to visit the brethren. 
He said: ‘I do not know a better way to please the Lord 
than the way of the common life’. In 1404 he visited 
again the brethren-house. Seating himself among us, 
he spoke as follows: ‘Forty years ago I found less 
knowledge of God in Kampen, Deventer, and Zwolle 
than the least one among you now possesses. When I 
was a young man I desired to serve the Lord, but knew 
not which way to go. There was at that time a pastor 
from Schoonhoven in Holland, named. John Goedman, 
canon at Deventer, who, in order to win souls gave up 
his prebend’. He told us once how little light there was 
then among men, and only very few good monasteries. 
In Amsterdam was Gysbert Dou, in Leiden Thomas or 
Damasus, who used to attend our meetings as one of 
our members; in Purmereinde was Nicholas, in Hoorn 
William of Putten ........ and John Brinkerinck was 
in charge of the sisters at Zutphen’”’. 

And what do the sources tell about Gerard Zerbolt 
of Zutphen? Thomas a Kempis says of him: “Although 
he lived but for a short time, yet he left us doctrinal 
treatises that are most acceptable, for he was a very 
diligent student of the Holy Scriptures, and from the 
dark sayings of the learned he extracted divers aromatic 
spices having virtue against the distempers of vice to 
heal the languors of the soul’’®. These “aromatic spices” 
seem to have invigorated many languishing souls, if one 
is to judge by the way in which Zerbolt’s works were 
devoured. Both Luther and Loyola at one time felt 
stimulated by them. 


308 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


The art of extracting “‘spices’’ was quite common 
among Groote’s followers and Cele’s pupils, and Thomas 
a Kempis developed it to perfection. How he managed 


_ to collect the “aromatic spices” found in the “Imitation — 
” of Christ’ is still a mystery to most scholars, — that 


' very remarkable work, whose influence can hardly be 


exaggerated. We appreciate it justly when we take into 


account the tribute paid to the “Imitation”, not simply 
by Roman Catholics, or even by Christians of other 
denominations’. The book has been perused almost as 
eagerly by Turks, Hindoes, and Chinese;.and it is often 
quoted with approbation by modern mystics who are 
not affiliated with any church. 

Who can estimate the influence of such a book? Here 
we approach a large chapter in the history of mankind, 
—a chapter as yet unwritten. From home to home the 
“Imitation” traveled, unnoticed by historians. For we 
cannot follow it with any instrument known to us, but 
must in our imagination enter the homes of the countless 
thousands of human beings who read the book and left 
no record of what its messages of hope and consolation 
meant to their languishing souls or their aching hearts. 

Other works in which the principles of the Christian 
Renaissance are expressed are those of Wessel Gansfort. 
True, some of his individual views, like that on 
purgatory, cannot be regarded as of the movement itself. 
Wherever any one of Groote’s followers differed from 
all the others, his peculiar views are to be set aside as 


_ something extraneous to the movement. It should be 
observed, however, that when the fifteenth century drew 


to a close, the Christian Renaissance had already under- 
gone a change. And when finally Cornelius Hoen 
appeared with his letter on the Eucharist in 1520, it was 


resolved into other movements. The “Spiritual Exer- : 


/ 
= 
d 

a 
F 





THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 309 


eises’’ of Loyola, though written in 1526 and perfected 
much later, the “Institutes” of Calvin, composed about 
the year 1534, the educational reforms of Sturm at 
Strasbourg, and some of Luther’s best works, in 
common with some by Erasmus, Melanchton, Zwingli, 
Murmellius, Wimpheling, and Lefévre, — all these must 
be defined in part as fruits of the Christian Renaissance. 


II 


One naturally wishes to inquire first of all what ideas 
the Christian Renaissance and the Reformation had in 
common, and how much Luther was indebted to the 
former movement. Denifle and Grisar have shown that 
the turning point in Luther’s religious life came as early 
as the year 1515, when he was writing his lecture on 
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans*®. For although the 95 
theses against indulgences, posted on the Cathedral at 
Wittenberg in 1517, were the chief cause of Luther’s 
fame, and although his “Address to the German Nobil- 
ity’ set forth views regarding benefices and other 
burning topics of the day, and thereby greatly increased 
his popularity, nevertheless his most remarkable work 
of the period from 1517-1525 remains the treatise 
“Concerning Christian Liberty’*®, and his most note- 
worthy doctrine that of the depravity of man or original 
sin, which led to that of justification by faith alone. 

This significant statement of Luther is found in his 
Lecture on Paul’s Epistle: “Nowhere have I found so 
clear an explanation of original sin as in the little treatise 
of Gerard Groote: ‘Blessed is the man’, where he speaks 
as a sensible theologian, and not as a rash philosopher’”®, 
the quotation making reference to the “Spiritual Ascen- 
sions” of Gerard Zerbolt, which begins with: “Blessed is 


310 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the man’. Paul had written in the third chapter of his 
Epistle to the Romans: “Therefore we conclude that a 
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law”. 
What were the conclusions drawn by Luther? All our . 
thoughts, and all our deeds are sinful. Even in our very 
noblest thoughts and our best works the stain of sin mars 
every effort we make to improve our character. Man 
can do nothing without grace; he is depraved, owing to 
the fall of Adam. “And what is original sin”? Luther 
“asks. “According to the subtle arguments of the scholas- 
tic theologians, it is the absence of original justice..... , 
According to the Apostle and the simple teachings of 
Jesus Christ, it is not merely the deprivation of a func- 
tion in the will, not merely the withdrawal of light from 
the intellect, or power from the memory, but it-is the loss 
of all rectitude and all efficacy in all our faculties, both 
of the body and the soul, of the interior and the whole 
of the exterior man. It is besides the inclination to do 
evil, the dislike of good, the aversion to light and’ wis- 
dom, the love of error and darkness, the departure from 
and abomination of good works, and the approach to 
evil. Hence, as the Fathers have justly remarked, this 
original sin is the fuel itself of concupiscence, the law of 
the flesh, the law of the members, the disease of nature, 
the tyrant, the original disease......... Here you have 
that hydra with its many heads, that imperishable mon- 
ster with which we here below are struggling till death. 
Here you have that untameable Cerberus, that invincible 
Antaeos. I have found no one to give such a clear ex- 
planation of original sin as Gerard Groote in his little 
treatise: “Blessed is the man’, where he does not speak 
as a rash philosopher, but as a sound theologian”. 
Luther can agree with only one earlier writer, and this 
writer Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen, a Brother of the 





THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 311 


Common Life at Deventer. His own words, then, prove 
how greatly he was indebted to Groote’s brotherhood. 
And we can now understand in part at least the startling 
remarks of Luther respecting Gansfort’s writings: “If 
I had read his works earlier, my enemies might think that 
Luther had absorbed everything from Wessel: his spirit 
is so in accord with mine......... I have not the 
slightest doubt that I have been teaching the truth, since 
he, living at so different a time, under another sky, in 
another land, and under such divers circumstances, is so 
consistently in accord with me in all things, not only as 
to substance, but in the use of almost the same words’’. 

Luther was also a follower of Ailly, bishop of Cam- 
bray, who had written a letter in defense of the Brethren 
of the Common Life in the year 1413**. Ailly had come 
to Deventer in that year to protect the Sisters of the 
Common Life as well as the brethren”, and so much did 
the good bishop encourage the brethren that they prepared 
their first written constitution, beginning with the pro- 
logue: “Since the mode of life of clerks and presbyters 
who are serving God by having no property of their own, 
in chastity and mutual friendship and by the labor of 
their hands, has been approved ........ and confirmed 
by Peter-d’Ailly, cardinal of Cambray,,..,.. 2.4, this 
mode of life is to be continued and its rules written down 
lest we or our successors may forget them’’. 

Luther knew Ailly quite well. He writes in 1520: 
“Formerly, when I was imbibing the scholastic theology, 
my lord the Cardinal of Cambray gave me occasion for 
reflection, by arguing most acutely, in the fourth book of 
the ‘Sentences’, that it would be much more probable, and 
that fewer superfluous miracles would have to be in- 
troduced, if real bread and real wine, and not only their 
accidents, were understood to be upon the altar’**. Also, 


312 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Luther was a pupil of Gabriel Biel'*; who had become the 
rector of the Brethren of the Common Life at Butzbach 
near Mainz — a fact which cannot have escaped Luther’s 
attention, the more so since he had been taught for a_ 
year by the Brethren of the Common Life at Magdeburg. 
Biel was an Occamist™, like Gansfort. Gerson had also 
been an Occamist and Luther probably knew that chiefly 
due to Gerson’s vigorous defense of the brethren against 
the Dominicans at the Council of Constance were they 
rescued from further oppression. The way he praises the 
brethren at Herford as late as in the year 1532, and also 
in 1534, would make us conclude that he always respected 
Groote’s new brotherhood very highly. 

Would it not have been useful for Gansfort’s latest 
biographers to reflect duly on all these facts before they 
decided that Luther could not have meant what he said, 
when he asserted there was so much similarity between 
his views and those of Gansfort? Let us begin with 
indulgences, a problem uppermost in Luther’s mirid be- 
tween 1517-1522. Luther wrote a number of theses on 
-indulgences; so had Gansfort more than thirty years 
before, only he called them propositions, and did not 
nail them on any church door. Gansfort had seen no use 
in indulgences at all. He said: “On him who is returning, 
or who has returned, to God, nothing ought to be so 
strictly enjoined as to sin no more, but purely to love 
God. Purity of heart, therefore, is the only perfect 
penitence, and ought to be inculcated by instruction and 
admonition......... Plenary pardon of sin is the actual 
removal of every obstacle preventing the beatific vision; 
just as thorough repentance consists in true and sincere 
purity of heart. Both, however, come from God alone’”’®. 
And what did Luther. himself say in 1520? “I wrote 
about indulgences two years ago, but now I extremely 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 313 


regret having published that book. At that time I was 
still involved in a great superstitious respect for the 
tyranny of Rome, which led me to judge that indulgences 
were not to be totally rejected, seeing them, as I did, 
to be approved by so general a consent among men...... 
Afterwards I perceived that they were nothing but mere 
impostures of the flatterers of Rome, whereby to make 
away with the faith of God and the money of men’’”’. 
When shortly afterwards Luther found Gansfort calling 
indulgences a pious fraud, an error, and a lie, this must 
have pleased him greatly. 

Another chief cause of Luther’s fame was his attack 
on the greedy and indolent clergy. Many of them 
were drawing revenues from church lands or other 
property; some of them grew wealthy by collecting the 
contributions of several congregations, without doing 
anything for them in return. Groote had had two pre- 


bends when living at Cologne, but in 1374 he had re- 
linquished both. The Brotherhood of the Common Life \ 


' as an institution acted as a protest against the moral 
decline of the clergy by trying to return to the customs 


in vogue among the early Christians. Ailly and Gerson- 


no doubt had admired the brethren for this attitude. 
What the brethren at Magdeburg taught Luther cannot 
be stated with certainty. We do not know why his parents 
sent him to Magdeburg. But as a boy of fourteen he 
must have learned.something there, although the brethren 
did not urge him to become a mendicant monk. If it was 
at Magdeburg that Luther’s thoughts “first turned in the 
direction of the monastic life’, as some writers think’®, 
the haunting picture of a friar he met there one day on 
the street, “begging bread and carrying a sack like a 
donkey’’, undoubtedly induced him to enter a monastery. 
If the brethren had actually done what many modern 


sc. 


314 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


writers think they did, Luther certainly would have men- 
tioned the fact later on. Instead of that he says in 1532: 
“Such brother-houses and monasteries please me beyond 
measure”. : 

Gansfort’s latest biographer, in summing up the differ- 
ences between Luther’s point of view and that of Gans- 
fort, should have left out the question of manual labor 
and monastic institutions’’, for the reference he gives to 
one of Gansfort’s letters proves nothing in favor of his 
assumption. On the contrary, he quotes from a letter 
which must have impelled Luther to commend Gansfort 
very cordially for it to his friends. Part of this letter 
reads as follows: 

“Do not, my dearest sister, so misunderstand my words 
regarding the pursuit of cleanness and purity of heart as 
to think that you, in your own purity, can be found pure 
in the sight of God, since all our righteousness is as 
filthy rags in his sight. Do not therefore waste your 
strength to no purpose. Your body is frail; you are of 
the tender sex; do not undertake what of all of David’s 
warriors, the picked and stoutest men of Israel, could 
not perform. No one shall be saved by his own merits 
or his own righteousness. There is only one sacrifice of 
the great High Priest, and only so far as we partake of 
this we are sanctified and pure in heart. 

“You will say to me, ‘How shall I partake of this 
sacrifice; we rarely go to communion, not oftener than 
once a fortnight, or occasionally once a week’? It was 
not so much this outward participation that I urged; but 
rather that you should often bathe and wash and be 
baptized in the blood of the Lamb, who was born for 
you and given for your every necessity. At that time I 
promised you only one thing, and now I repeat that I do 
not merely assure you that as often as you pray the 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 315 


Father through the sacrifice of his Son offered for your 
sanctification you are sanctified......... If you think 
and reflect on him often, you will be pure in heart. This 
is the better part, which was chosen by that wise lover, 
[Mary] Magdalene, who sitting at the feet of Jesus 
listened to his words, intent in her longing and wearied 
Dyenog labors, '.co85), 2: What then is the use of all this 
needless hardship in trying to attain the impossible? 
Through desire for Christ and pious meditation upon 
him it is within our power to have righteousness and 
purity of heart, if we but wish it...... *.. There is no 
necessity for severe fasts or the wearing of a rough 
goat’s-hair garment. The worthy fruit of repentance 
requires no bodily severity, but only that which is 
necessary for all, the piety that waiteth for all things. 

“Be regular in the observance of your duties in your 
cloister home, and that will suffice for bodily discipline. 
In the matter of sleep and food and drink and clothing, 
follow the common usage and be content......... In 
your confessions, I advise you to do just as your faithful 
Mother Superior and leader shall counsel. And you can 
be content with the thought that you are ready to confess 
orally, when it is expedient. For we are not bound to 
confess except for our good, and for our progress in 
salvation’””®, 

This letter brings us to that celebrated doctrine of 
justification by faith, the natural outcome of Luther’s 
doctrine on original sin and the universal depravity of 
mankind. Here we attack the chief question of all 
theology, wherefore we should duly consider the in- 
fluence of Gerard Zerbolt upon Luther. And we also 
shall have to bear in mind what Gansfort and the 
“Imitation” said about this subject, for Luther approach- 
ed Gansfort very closely, as was indicated in a preceding 


316 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


chapter**. But Zerbolt, Thomas a Kempis, and Gansfort 
had borrowed their ideas from Florentius Radewijns, 
who had written in his “Treatise on Spiritual Exercises”: _ 
“In order that we may know what it means to purify 
the heart and to acquire virtues we must consider that 
to the first man faculties of the soul were given to seek 
the good. For he possessed an intellect and emotion, 
memory and other faculties, like love, fear, hatred, hope, 
joy, etc., in order that he might know God through his 
intellect, love him through his emotion or will; and have 
rest in him thr6ugh his memory; fear made him dread 
to offend God and to be separated from him, hope made 
him confide in the benevolence of God, love made him 
love God above all things, and himself and his neighbor 
for God’s sake; joy had been given to him that he might 
rejoice in God with felicity supreme. But in the fall 
of the first man mankind incurred original sin; his 
natural feelings were deformed so that they now are 
prone to evil. 

“For reason, blinded by sin, often accepts falsehood 
for truth; the warped will takes evil for good; the un- 
stable memory _busies itself with those things which 
cause it to grow restless and vacillating, as it no longer 
concentrates on the highest good, where it might have 
everything. Thus man now fears only temporal advers- 
ities, physical hardships, and loss of honor. Thus hope 
has become deranged, for man now hopes for less or 
for more than he ought to do’’’. 

This was the doctrine of caitincl sin that Luther 
found in the ‘Spiritual Ascensions’’. Gansfort and 
Thomas a Kempis were taught this same doctrine, though 
they did not react on it in exactly the same way. It 
may very well be that Luther was influenced more by 
the “Imitation’’ than by Zerbolt, for this little work was 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 317 


eagerly devoured at that time by men of his character. 
Luther often read it’*, wherefore we also wish to know 
what the “Imitation” says about the result of original sin. 
In chapters 31 and 55 of book III we read: 

“T know not what it is, or by what spirit we are led, 
or what we pretend, we that seem to be called spiritual, 
that we take so much pains, and are so full of anxiety 
about transitory and mean things, while we scarcely at 
all, or but seldom, think of our own inward concern- : 
ments, with full recollection of mind: We mind not 
where our affections lie, nor bewail the impurity that 
is in all our actions. For ‘all flesh had corrupted his 
way, and therefore did the great deluge ensue. Since 
then our inward affection is much corrupted, our actions 
thence proceeding must needs be corrupted also, giving 
proof of the want of internal vigor. 

“OQ Lord my God, who hast created me after thine 
own image and likeness, grant me this Grace, which 
thou hast’ shewed to be so great and so necessary to 
salvation; that I may overcome my most evil nature 
which draweth me to sin and to perdition. For I feel 
in my flesh the law of sin contradicting the law of my 
mind, and leading me captive to the obeying of sensuality 
in many things; neither can I resist the passions thereof, 
unless thy most holy Grace fervently infused into my 
heart do assist me. There is need of thy Grace, and of 
great degrees thereof, that Nature may be overcome, 
which is ever prone to evil from her youth. For through 
Adam the first man, Nature being fallen and corrupted 
by sin, the penalty of this stain hath descended upon all 
mankind, in such sort that ‘Nature’ itself, which by 
thee was created good and upright, is now taken for the 
sin and infirmity of corrupted nature, because the in- 
clination thereof left unto itself draweth to evil and to 
inferior things’, 


fa 


— 


318 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Zerbolt is not quite so clear as Radewijns, or the 
“Tmitation”, but his view cannot be omitted here. Only 
it must not be forgotten that he copied from Radewijns. 
Says Zerbolt: ““We have been contaminated by original 
sin, and wounded in all the powers and faculties of the 
soul. For through the loss of original justice as a result 
of our fall and the just judgment of God, these powers 
and feelings, having fallen from their proper status, 
have become deranged and diminished, though not com- 
pletely destroyed. Hence, it happens that these powers 
and feelings deviate from their proper course, instituted 
by God; they are prone to evil. Again, our reason, 
rendered vacillating and obtuse, often accepts falsehood 
for truth, and frequently busies itself with useless and 
vain thoughts. The will has become warped; it often 
chooses degenerate objects, loves carnal, and detests 
spiritual and celestial things. Our desires are deformed: 


they are covetous, and have degenerated into carnal 


lusts. Our hope does not seek God, but wealth and fame, 
or something it has no right to ask for. We are grieved 
by loss of temporal riches, and of honor. Christ through 
his precious death does indeed redeem us from our 
original sin, so that this loss of soul powers or the law 
of the flesh is not guilt, in order that there be no con- 
demnation for those who are in Jesus Christ, though he 
does not at once restore us to our original righteousness, 
nor does he reform the faculties of our soul, but left 
those to be reformed by us through saintly exercises’. 
It appears that at the very moment when Luther 
evolved his view on justification by faith, he was pro- 
foundly influenced by the principles of the ‘““New Devo- 
tion”. In his “Lecture on the Epistle to the Romans” 
he indicated his contempt for scholastic philosophy, as 
we saw, and stated the need of referring to the words 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 319 


of Paul and Christ, approving in “one breath with this 
the view of Gerard Zerbolt. Man was in a dreadful 
condition, Zerbolt had asserted, in imitation of Rade- 
wijns. No one could help him but Christ through his 
sacrifice on the cross. Man would obtain salvation as a 
result of Christ’s work, finished for him on*Golgotha. 
But he had to take many spiritual exercises, not for the 
sake of regaining his lost heritage, which he could not 
do anyhow, but to improve his character. Luther writes 
in 1515: “Sin has remained behind in spiritually minded 
persons as an exercise in the life of grace, in order to 
humble pride, and restrain boldness’’’*®. “Good works”, 
he continues, “do not please God because they bring 
merit, but because God has predestined from eternity that 
they shall please him. Consequently the good works do 
not make us good, but our goodness or rather God’s 
goodness makes us and our works good; in themselves 
they are not good, but God judges them good””’. This 
reminds us of Gansfort, who wrote: “Do not think that 
you in your purity can be found pure in the sight of 
God, since all our righteousness is as filthy rags in his 
sight”?’, 

Luther, in common with Groote’s followers, insists 
however that man must exert himself. He wants us to 
perform preparatory works, to “cultivate the soil”. 
Gansfort uses exactly the same simile, as we saw in the 
preceding chapter. This must have struck the German 
reformer in 1521. And as for the doctrine of free will, 
neither of the two men believed in it at all. “Grace will 
not be granted to man’’, says Luther, “if he neglects to 
perform the agricultural work within himself”. Man 
must sigh for deliverance; he must hope for a change, 
and believe in the Savior. Only in Christ lies our 
justification. We must search our inner selves, and 


320 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


bewail our multitudinous sins. God will elect us, though 
-none of us can know whether God has done so. As yet 
he does not stress the phrase “by faith alone”, and 
assurance of election is still lacking. Luther’s theological 
views are not well defined in 1515 and 1516, but they © 
plainly indicate the tendency of his thought”. 

In common with Groote and Gansfort, as well as with 
others not connected with the Christian Renaissance, he 
points out the abuses among the clergy as early as the 
years 1515 and 1516. The higher clergy he calls “se- 
ducers of the Christian people”. Their love of wealth 
and luxury is crying to heaven for vengeance, he con- 
cludes. The common people are neglected, and even 
robbed. As for charity, what does the Church do? The 
clergy are building majestic structures, heaping up pos- 
sessions, scrambling land and estates together. 

In 1516 and 1517 Luther proceeded further on his 
way toward “heresy’’, as viewed by Catholics, or the 
“dawn of new light’, as judged by men like Melanchton. | 
“Now for the first time’, Melanchton wrote afterwards, 
“the light of new theology appeared after a long, dark 
night. Luther showed the real difference between Law 
and Gospel; he refuted the Pharisaical errors which at 
that time ruled school and pulpit, as if man could earn 
forgiveness of sin through his own labors. He brought 
back the souls to the Son of God, and pointed out the 
lamb, which bore our guilt’. And Mathesius praised 
Luther in the following manner: “Young Dr. Luther 
says he had solemnly sworn a true and public oath that 
he would abide by the Scriptures; it was better to appeal 
to the Scriptures in dealing with questions of belief or 
conscience than that one stake one’s soul and conscience 
on the dark sayings of Scotus and Albert Magnus, the 
dubious Thomas Aquinas, the modern school or the 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 321 


Occainistsrics Sia: 2 He insisted on this before his attack 
on indulgences”. Up with Augustine, cried Luther’s 
followers early in 1517, and down with Aristotle, the 
heathen. Away with good works, was the refrain. “That 
horrible doctrine of predestination”, adds Grisar, “was 
now formulated by them’. “Faith alone justifies’, 
Luther constantly repeated. Even Gabriel Biel was now 
rejected by him. Gradually he turned away from the 
teachers of his youth”. 

But before we investigate in what respects Luther 
deviated from the principles of the Christian Renaissance, 
we shall want to know what he had in common with 
Gansfort, Groote, and Thomas a Kempis in addition to 
the subjects discussed thus far. For Gansfort’s latest 
biographers find fault with Ullmann for having con- 
sidered Gansfort and Luther kindred spirits. Be- 
sides, we wish to extend our comparison between the 
Christian Renaissance and the Reformation. If Luther 
attacked the mendicant monks in 1520, he did not there- 
by oppose Gansfort’s views on monasticism or on manual 
labor. Many of Gansfort’s writings had been burned by 
the Dominicans, and the mendicants had repeatedly 
attacked the Brethren of the Common Life. Luther said 
this about monasteries in 1520: “It would be, I think, 
necessary, especially in these perilous times, that founda- 
tions and convents should again be organized as they 
were in the time of the Apostles and a long time after’. 
And this: “Let no more mendicant monasteries be 
built’’*°. 

Luther and Gansfort also agreed on the absolute 
necessity of faith. Luther wrote in 1520: “The highest 
worship of God is to ascribe to him truth, righteousness, 
and whatever qualities we must ascribe to one in whom 
we believe: ... 2.00. On the other hand, what greater 


322 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


rebellion, impiety, or insult to God can there be than 
not to believe his promises? ........ What then can 
works, done in such a state of impiety, profit us, were 


they even angelic or apostolic works’”*'? Gansfort had - 


written thus: “Not as if infidelity alone was sin; for 
pride, envy, and falsehood, are so too. But this sin is 
spoken of, as if there were none but itself, because all 
other sins remain so long as this remains, and all depart 
when this departs, so that when there is no more unbelief, 
all sins will be forgiven’’*?. 

There is one thing about the Protestants of the 
third and fourth decades of the sixteenth century 
that should be noted here. They very generally consider 
themselves to have been emancipated from a realm of 
darkness. They often mention the Gospel as having trans- 
planted the Law, and Luther and Calvin as the prophets 
of enlightenment, teaching the misguided people the 
uselessness of good works, but what had Gansfort said? 
‘The Law, both that which was given by Moses and that 
which is written in the hearts of all men, merely vexed. 
It vexed, I say, but it did not justify. There was there- 
fore need for some law which was not vexatious, some 
paternal law, some sweet law of love which justified, 
and by which the sons became obedient and inherited 
the kingdom. Such is the law of the Gospel, which gives 
no temporal promises, and hence was published after 
the fulness of time, in order to admonish us to lift 
our eye above time, and point our hopes to eternity’”**. 

As for the doctrines of the universal priesthood of 
all believers and the authority of the Scriptures, these 
were mentioned in a preceding chapter. Even though 
Augustine had on one occasion asserted that one should 
believe in the Gospel because the Church did, Gansfort 
does not hesitate to state: “It is for God’s sake that we 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 323 


believe the Gospel, and for the Gospel’s sake that we 
believe the Church and the pope; we do not believe the 
Gospel for the Church’s sake’’**. Luther deserves credit 
for having admitted the similarity between his views and 
those of Wessel Gansfort. And Melanchton rightly 
asserted: “On most of the main articles of the Evan- 
gelical creed, Wessel’s views had been the same that are 
taught now and if at present particular points by God’s 
help are more fully inculcated, the cause is that senti- 
ments of different parties are enlivened and developed 
in their contact with each other, — an advantage of 
which Wessel was destitute in his isolated position’”®?’. 

There can be no doubt that when Luther first read 
Gansfort’s works, he must have been reminded of state- 
ments he had made himself. He had accused the papacy 
of hiding behind three walls, while Gansfort speaks of 
the pope’s friends seeking shelter behind one wall**. Both 
reformers attacked the evil of simony*‘; and insisted on 
reduction of formal observances** and on reform of 
the universities, where they both had been shocked by 
the dissolute lives led by most students’. 

Why then should any one ask in surprise how Luther 
could have approved of Gansfort’s writings so warmly*®? 
Why lay so much stress on differences between the views 
of Gansfort and Luther of which Luther himself was 
not aware? One of them has just been discussed; it-is 
the question of manual labor and monasticism*. The 
second point is the fact that Gansfort never thought of 
_ leaving the Church; the same can be said of Luther 
before 1522, as he had not thought of leaving. His 
opponents gave him no chance to argue his views; he 
was forced out. The third point deals with the papacy 
as instituted by God; that will pass, though we should 
bear in mind that almost all that Gansfort said about 


324 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


the papacy-must have pleased Luther greatly. The little 
power he ascribed to the pope was negligible. Fourthly 
we are told that Gansfort believed the sacraments work 
“ex opere operato”, that is, they have power in them- 
selves to bring forgiveness of sins. This point is 
badly taken, for Gansfort says: “The effects of the 
sacraments are dependent upon the inclination of the 
partaker, and upon an inclination requisite for the in- 
tention. But the requisite inclination for the efficacy of 
this sacrament [Eucharist] is a hungering and thirsting 
for the life-giving food and drink. Hence the less one 
hungers and thirsts for it, the less also will be the effect 
Herreceivest acces It follows that a sacrifice renders 
satisfaction only so far as he, for whom the sacrifice 
is made, is fit for the gift......... If the whole world 
were offered for one who disdains it, little satisfaction 
or none at all were made......... It is true that baptism 
and the sacrament of penance take away all sin, and that 
too entirely. But this truth is to be accepted as dealing 
with those sins which one has committed before baptism 
and before penance. For since those sins are past and 
no longer in his power, if he believes in God and respects 
and holds fast to him as his great priest and sacrifice, 
they are altogether cleansed away by faith. If, however, 
some impurity is intermingled with the cleansing,...... 
since this is in his power and is his fault, it is not the 
result of any defect in the sacrament that he rises from 
baptism alive and not yet pure,-even if he be baptized 
by Peter or Paul’**. In other words, faith alone brings 
forgiveness of sins, which is exactly what Luther taught. 
Fifthly, Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, where- 
fore one must worship the Host, Gansfort is supposed 
to have taught. This would be a good point, if the first 
part were left out, for Luther also believed in the presence 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 325 


of Christ in the Host. Moreover, Gansfort did not say 
that one should worship the Host, but Christ in the Host, 
where Luther agreed with him. Sixthly, only priests 
may consecrate the sacraments, according to Gansfort. 
This would have become another good point, if distinc- 
tion had been made between the views’ entertained by 
Luther before and after 1522, for Luther very soon had 
to change his view. He began with the universal 
priesthood of believers, but as soon as he and his follow- 
ers built up a church organization themselves, they could 
not maintain this doctrine. Seventhly, it is not necessary 
to accept both the wine and the bread; according to 
Gansfort. This is true, for Gansfort lays very little 
stress on external observances. And yet it is quite likely 
-that Luther was favorably impressed by Gansfort’s dis- 
like of formalism. Next, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in 
Gansfort’s opinion. If such is the case, Gansfort made 
very little of it, for he stresses the phrase: “Do this in 
remembrance .of me’. Point ten is a poor one. The 
priest has the power in administering the sacrament of 
penance to forgive sins. Gansfort never said such a 
thing at all, as was indicated above**. Then follow about 
a dozen other points, none of which could have made 
much of an impression on Luther for the simple reason 
that he was overwhelmed by the many important views 
of Gansfort on which he completely agreed with the 
“Frisian” reformer... 

We can understand perfectly well Luther’s gratifica- 
tion in reading Gansfort’s works for the first time. His 
friends had been lauding him as the herald of enlighten- 
ment. They were hailing what they considered the aurora 
of better Evangelical teachings. Impenetrable was the 

_ darkness of the past, and the first beams of light had 
been cruelly extinguished. But here was Wessel, a learned 


a 
ON a ei: 


326 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


Frisian from Groningen, who had not retracted, who 
had not been persecuted, and yet, how many of his ideas 
exactly resembled those of the great reformer himself! 
Luther’s “heresy’’ was therefore no innovation. Gans- 
fort was introduced to him by two men from the Nether- 
lands who enthusiastically embraced the teachings of 
Luther’s party. They felt Gansfort and he had much in 
common, and thus that eulogy of Martin Luther on . 
Gansfort’s works flowed very naturally from his pen. 


III 


There is one marked difference, however, between the 
theology of the Christian Renaissance as a whole and 
that of the Lutherans. Luther reasoned this way: “A 
Christian, like Christ his head, being full and in 
abundance through his faith, ought to be content with 
this form of God obtained through faith, except that he . 
ought to increase this faith till it is perfected. For this 
faith is his life, justification, and salvation......... 
Thus from faith flow forth love and joy in the Lord, 
and from love a cheerful, willing, free spirit, disposed 


to serve our neighbor voluntarily, without taking any 
-- account of gratitude or ingratitude, praise or blame, gain 
- or loss 
_ of faith. He begins with faith in God and ends with 
_ love for his neighbor. The Christian Renaissance on the 


44 Luther does speak about love, but as the result 


other hand (and the Roman Catholic church as well) 
teaches that love is supreme and that faith is generated © 
by it. Groote, Radewijns, Zerbolt, and the “Imitation” 
do not consider perfect faith the highest good, but perfect 
love.. They pay less attention to faith, for in cultivating | 
love they added faith to the virtues they hoped to acquire. 
Luther mentions the word faith oftener than the word 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 327 


love, and Paul as often as Christ. In doing this he ; 
deviated somewhat from the teachings of the Christian 
Renaissance*’. : 

Luther differed further from the principal tenets of 
the Christian Renaissance by ignoring, and even scorning, 
the remarks made by the Apostle James on the confession 
of sins, and on faith without works being absolutely 
worthless. 

Most of Luther’s followers also, who proudly called 
themselves “Evangelicals”, reflected just as much on the 
justification by faith taught by Paul as on the Sermon 
on the Mount. They often spoke of the Gospel in con- 
nection with the faults of their predecessors and oppo- 
nents, thereby meaning to imply that they themselves 
were following its instructions more faithfully than the 
former. Nevertheless, they not seldom showed a de- 
plorable lack of charity and forbearance. ‘Away with 
the pope’, they cried, ‘away with all the monks, priests, 
and bishops;. down with intolerance and persecution’! 
Shortly afterwards they organized a church government 
themselves, and persecuted their opponents wherever 
feasible, which afterwards could also be said of many 
Calvinists and Jesuits. Groote’s followers, on the other 
hand, had insisted on moderation, and brotherly love, and 
the Brethren of the Common Life, as far as we know, 
never showed much inclination before 1520 to interfere 
with anybody’s religious aspirations, or to harm their 
opponents in any way. After 1520 they were generally 
molested and soon were disbanded almost everywhere, 
after having preached the message of reform to clergy and 
laymen alike. Erasmus, who for about twelve years had 
been their pupil, in 1528 voiced their views in writing: 

“Some persons emphasize the confessional too much, 
others on the contrary want to do away with it altogether, 


328 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


though there might be a mean between the two extremes. 
Likewise certain persons have carried the Mass so far 
that it almost becomes with unlearned and sordid priests, 
or rather sacrificers, a source of profit and ground of 
confidence for evil-living men; others again woutd totally 
abrogate it. But here, too, there is room for moderation 
whereby we might have a more holy and pure Mass, 
and yet avoid having none at all. In a similar way cer- 
tain persons in their extreme and superstitious worship 
of spirit almost obscure the worship of Christ. Some 
persons strive utterly to overthrow all the status of the 
monks; others on the contrary lay too much emphasis 
on their constitutions, ceremonies, titles, and kinds of 
vesture. In these and all other matters it might be 
brought about by prudent moderation that we might 
hold the dogma of faith more certainly and better; that 
the confession might be improved and made less irksome; 
the Mass might be more sacred and more venerated; we 
might have priests and monks, if fewer in number, yet 
certamlypetter.< oe ess That would be more easy to 
accomplish if private reasonings were laid aside and we 
were all to look to one great objective, that is, the glory 
of Christ. At present most persons look after their own 
interests, and so it happens that it is not well with us 
either in private or public’’*®. 

The same views are expressed in a letter addressed in 
1528 to Martin Bucer, the Alsatian reformer: “Those 
who have given up the recital of the canonical hours do 
not now pray at all; many who have laid aside the 
pharisaical dress are really worse than before......... 
The first thing that makes me draw back from this 
company is chat I see so many among this troop becoming 
altogether estranged from the purity of the Gospel’. 
To Lefévre he had written in 1526: “We see with what 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 329 


kind of literature the Lutherans fill the world. Nor are 
those documents a whit more sane which are written on 
the other side by certain theologians. From the collision 
of such books, what else arises except conflagration? 
The same result happens from the meetings and speeches 
of both parties; so they wildly abuse one another and 
the rope of contention is strained’’*’. 

These letters remind us of Erasmus’ remark about 
Gansfort: “Wessel and Luther have much in common, 
but how much more modestly and like Christ did he 
propagate his teachings than those Lutherans at Stras- 
bourg’’! Gansfort’s followers generally saw little use in 
radical changes, in blood and strife. For that reason 
perhaps they did not create so great a stir as men like 
Luther, who did not always owe their celebrity to exalted 
views or great learning, but chiefly to their break with 
the Church. It is indeed very doubtful whether Luther 
was a greater theologian than Gansfort. He may not 
even have had so much influence as the latter, for real 
influence is exerted in various invisible and intangible 
ways, and usually is not recorded correctly in the pages 
of history. Many of Gansfort’s followers came to regard 
the universal religious quarrels about them as sad mis- 
takes. For that they have as yet received but little 
recognition. Nevertheless, their action will be viewed in 
a different light in future days when passion has given 
place to caution and moderation. Then perhaps the 
scholarly world may change its views on the influences 
of peaceful compared with revolutionary reforms. 


[IV 


A few moments should now be devoted to the line of 
demarcation which between 1520 and 1570, roughly 


~ 330 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


speaking, was drawn between the Protestants east and 
west of the Rhine. One doctrine has been held 
chiefly responsible for the rift in the harmony between 
the Protestants. It was the new doctrine regarding 
the presence of Christ’s body in the Holy Supper, or 
Host. The doctrine of “transubstantiation”, held by 
the Roman Catholic church, teaches that the bread and 
wine is changed into Christ’s flesh and blood; that of 
‘‘consubstantiation”, held by the Lutherans, compares 
- the presence of Christ’s body in the bread and wine with 
the immanence of fire in red-hot iron; while the corres- 
ponding doctrine of the Reformed churches in Holland, 
France, and Switzerland, the Anglican or Episcopal 
church, the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and 
most other Protestants, rejects the bodily presence of 
Christ in the bread and wine of the communion service. 
We have in the preceding chapter considered Hoen’s 
startling view, written down by him in the year 1520. 
On account of its historical significance, part of Hoen’ S 
letter should be quoted here: 

“Christ has instituted the Holy Supper in order that 
the soul may firmiy believe that she really has a Bride- 
groom of her own, who gave himself for her, and shed 
for her his precious blood. By this means she is induced 
to avert her affections from the objects she formerly loved, 
to fix them on Christ alone, and to make him her chief 
good. This means, as the Savior says (John VI), to 
feed upon Christ and to drink his blood; and whoever 
partakes of the Lord’s Supper, without such faith, feeds 
rather upon the manna of the Jews than upon Christ. 
Of this quickening faith the schoolmen of the Romish 
church knew nothing. They inculcated a dead faith, 
which, being merely historical, could not save. They 
imagined it sufficient to assert, and artificially, but 


) 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 331 


without Scriptural proof, to show that the bread after 
consecration is the true body of Christ. In this belief 
they paid to it divine honor, which if God be not in the 
bread differs little from the reverence paid by the heathen 
to stocks and stones. They allege indeed that they have 
the word of God which says: ‘This is my body’. Yes, 
they have the word of God, that same word which they 
have used to uphold the Romish tyranny in the text: 
“Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth’, etc.. All depends, 
however, upon how the word is understood. The Lord 
has forbidden us to believe those who say: ‘Lo, here is 
Christ, or lo there’. Consequently I ought not to believe 
_them who tell us that Christ is in the bread. If I do not 
listen to the Lord’s warning I cannot excuse myself as 
being the victim of deception, for these are the perilous 
times he foretold. The apostles spoke in a different way 
of this sacrament. They broke bread and called it bread, 
and all observe the most perfect silence about that which 
Rome believes. Nor does Paul object, as in I Cor. X 
he speaks of the bread of communion of the body of 
Christ [verse 16: ‘The bread which we break, is it not 
the communion of the body of Christ’?]. He does not 
say: “The bread is the body of Christ’. It is rather 
evident that in this passage ‘is’ must be taken for 
‘signifies’, which may be clearly inferred from the 
comparison between the bread and the sacrifice to idols 
[verses 17-21]. Something of which he does not aver 
that it is transmuted is yet to him, that is, signifies to 
him a fellowship with the devil to whom it is offered. 
“That Christ was once to become man was foretold 
by the prophets, demonstrated as a fact by himself, and 
preached as such by the apostles; but that he was daily 
to become bread under the hands of every sacrificing 
priest, was foretold neither by prophets nor apostles, but 


332 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


is founded upon the single expression: ‘This is my body’. 
But it is strange that they do not also assert that John 
the Baptist was transmuted into Elijah, seeing that 
Christ says of him: ‘This is Blijah’, or the evangelist 
John into Christ, seeing that the Lord upon the cross 
said to his mother respecting him: ‘Behold thy son’, 
I know that custom is to blame for the alarm felt at an 
interpretation of the words of the institution which . 
elsewhere is adopted without scruple, but I cannot find 
any good ground for the difference. Many other texts 
might be adduced, in which Christ calls himself a door, 
a way, and a corner-stone; or says: ‘I am the vine’, etc. ; 
yet no one cleaves so stoutly to the letter as to maintain 
that Christ is a real and natural vine. At least I am 
aware of no other ground why we are so straitened in 
interpreting the words of the institution, but the 
authority of the pope’’*. 

That these views of Hoen were the natural sequence 
of Gansfort’s teachings was firmly believed by Hoen 
himself as well as by Rode, rector of the brethren 
at Utrecht, and his friend Sagarus. Rode and Sagarus 
discussed Hoen’s treatise with Martin Bucer, who 
shortly afterwards praised Wessel Gansfort and Rode 
as the greatest thinkers among all the Reformers, in- 
cluding Luther. The following theses from Gansfort’s 
treatise on the sacrament of the Eucharist prepared the 
way for the view entertained by Hoen, Rode, Sagarus, 
Bucer, Oecolampadius, Zwingli, and Calvin: ‘‘ ‘He that 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me 
and I in him’. But he that saith he abideth in Christ 
ought also to walk even as he walked. Thus did [Mary] 
Magdalene eat, when she sat at the feet of Jesus; when 
at first she loved much, and when in anointing him she 
wrought a good work. She was scourged with his stripes, 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 333 


she was reproached with his reproaches; nay, more than 
if she had been reproached herself. She was crucified 
with his wounds. In his death she died with him from 
bitter grief. She rejoiced with him in his victory over 
death, and exulted in his triumph. In all this she ate 
the flesh of the Son of man and drank his blood, and 
therefore lives indeed for ever’. 

At the moment when Oecolampadius and Bucer were 
hesitating, when Zwingli had not yet formulated a definite 
view on this subject, the rector of the Brethren of the 
Common Life from Utrecht brought certainty and con- 
viction. He and his friend knew their favorite arguments 
so well that neither the Swiss nor the Alsatian reformers 
had any doubt left on this matter after the year 1522. 
In 1522 and 1523 Gansfort’s letters and his ‘“Farrago” 
were printed by Adam Petri at Basel. In 1523 
Petri wrote to his friend Conrad Faber, Professor at 
Kuisnacht: 

“Behold, most learned sir, what an author has been 
removed out of the way, and by what sort of men, and 
for what cause®’! In what other, excepting only the Bible, 
have you ever seen the whole work of Christ and the 
contents of Scripture set forth with clearer arguments, 
or those imposters and enemies of God combated with 
stronger ones? In what other have you found the tradi- 
tions of men more effectually shaken and obscured? 
Sa bse ae I hope that he will now influence the minds 
of all, if they would but read him, for he teaches not 
as they do, but as one that hath authority. I could wish 
also that he were read by those who, destitute of charity 
and puffed up with knowledge, give offence to the weak 
MP ENTIGE Sk: And therefore it is, that, although 
yourself adorned with all theological gifts, you have not 
scrupled to call him ‘The great Theologian’ ”’**. 


334 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


One characteristic feature of the principles of the 
Christian Renaissance was the aversion to formal, life- 
less observances. Groote’s disciples generally stressed 
the inner essence of things. Thus Groote, in addressing 
a simple “beguine’”, or sister, told her that the three 
monastic vows had very little significance. To serve 
God with pure devotion was religion, he claimed, not 
the taking of vows. There probably was no organized - 
group of men and women in the Europe of the fifteenth 
and early sixteenth centuries who so consistently sought 
‘to return to the ideals and customs of the apostolic 
church as did the Brethren and Sisters of the Common 
Life. They were always dressed in simple garments, 
‘avoided all forms of luxury and self-indulgence, humbly 
served one another, — superior, equal, or inferior, all 
alike; when they saw others go wrong they ignored it 
as much as possible; the mendicant monks, who often 
slandered and openly attacked them, they did not malign 
in abusive terms, nor did they seek revenge in any other 
way. The money earned by them was given in return 
for useful books, or for practical instruction imparted 
to their pupils. If perchance they earned more than they 
needed, this extra money was not spent in adorning their 
buildings, but as a rule the brethren used it for charitable 
purposes of various kinds. During the rectorate of 
Radewijns at Deventer, for example, they lodged poor 
school boys, healed the sick, and supplied the poor with 
alms. What was their incentive in doing all this? They 
wanted to be Christ’s disciples. At no other time and 
in no other place could Thomas a Kempis have gathered 
the material for the “Imitation of Christ” but at Deven- 
ter between 1384 and 1400. Christ had always remained 
poor in earthly goods, the brethren reasoned, wherefore 
they too wished to have no property of their own. He 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 335 


had spent almost all his time in serving others; hence 
the brethren, if they wanted to be his disciples, were 
bound to do the same. As long as sick and hungry 
people remained among them they had no right to erect 
costly churches, they thought. 

This love of simplicity, poverty, and service had found 
expression in the literary masterpieces of Groote’s disci- 
ples. As the sixteenth century dawned, some of their 
ideas would of necessity develop into others. Thus we 
proceed from the works of Groote to those of Gansfort 
and from Gansfort’s works to those of Cornelius Hoen, 
who had received his elementary education in the school 
of the Brethren of the Common Life at Utrecht. For 
the Christian Renaissance did not influence all men alike. 
Even its own inner essence was subject to change. Hence 
we are quite prepared to hear Hoen say: “If God is 
believed to be in the bread, then must the worship paid 
to him also be external. Hence the costly monstrance, 
the splendid temple with all its decorations, the lamps 
and tapers, the sacred garments interwoven with silk and 
gold, the choral chant of the monks, the unction and 
celibacy of the priests, the withdrawal of a part of the 
sacrament from the laity”®’. 

This desire to return to the pristine simplicity of the 
apostolic church we find personified in the deeds of the 
Swiss reformers and the Calvinists in the Low Countries. 
We cannot with absolute certainty conclude that Zwingli 
and Calvin, together with their followers in the Low 
Countries, followed the same impulse in sweeping away 
all the “idolatrous” emblems in their churches that 
impelled Hoen to reject the rites of the Catholic church. 
One American scholar reasons that the Swiss were the 
most democratic people in Europe, wherefore their Re- 
formation was “radical and thorough”. For the Luther- 


336 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


ans retained the crosses, altars, pictures, and emblems, 
while the Swiss whitewashed the walls in their churches, 
and took the crosses away®*. There may be some truth 
in this view. Nevertheless, we should not confine our- 
selves to the Swiss, for the Calvinists in France and 
the Low Countries also whitewashed the walls of their 
churches. The whole trend of the Christian Renaissance 


had been away from external observations. Hoen’s letter — 


was written as early as the year 1520, and its author 
may have entertained some of the views expressed therein 
several years before that date. Once more therefore we 
should bear in mind the extremely powerful influence 
of the Brethren of the Common Life and of the 
“Imitation”. 

Some scholars will- undoubtedly object to this inter- 
pretation of the Christian Renaissance. Roman Catholic 
writers may at first be inclined to hold that the move- 
ment adhered strictly to the faith of their church, not 
only during the whole of the fifteenth century, but later 
as well. The lives of Bucer, Sturm, and Zwingli seem 
to prove, however, that the religious movement inaugur- 
ated by Gerard Groote did not confine its influence to 
Roman Catholic reformers. Nor did the Yssel country 
remain overwhelmingly Catholic. Among others, the 
old church of St. Lebwin’s at Deventer had its walls 
whitewashed; and it has retained the whitewash 
until the present day, as also has the church of St. 
Michael at Zwolle, where Cele had his library. There is 
but one building left of the monastery of Windesheim; 
it was transformed into a church by Calvinists, and 
to-day it is still a Reformed church building. The 
_ brethren-house at Groningen was situated near the ven- 

erable pile of St. Martin’s, which also is now a Reformed 
church building. The same can be said of the prominent 


m 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 337 


old Catholic churches at Utrecht, Delft, and a great many 
other cities in the Netherlands. We should indeed be 
making a great mistake in saying that the noblest ideas 
of the Christian Renaissance were entirely absorbed by 
the Roman Catholics of the sixteenth century and after. 


On the other hand, we should be just as greatly mistaken © 


in going to the other extreme by seeing nothing but 
Protestant ideas in the writings of Groote’s school. 

The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination also may 
partly be considered a product of the new revival. 
It differed slightly from Luther’s doctrine, which had 
been built in part upon Zerbolt’s exposition on original 
sin. Whether Calvin was chiefly influenced by Luther, 
Lefevre, or Bucer, he ultimately received something from 
the Christian Renaissance. ‘Principally’, said Calvin, 
“T have wished to follow Bucer, man of holy memory’. 
And Bucer, a native of Schlettstadt, and an ardent 
admirer of Gansfort, was intimately in touch with the 
teachings of Groote’s disciples. Gansfort may very well 
be called a precursor of Calvinism in this respect. He 
and Bucer both differed somewhat from Luther. For 
the latter, though absolutely certain of his salvation, 
confided in the revelation of God through Jesus Christ. 
God could never be expected, Luther reasoned, to refuse 
the gift of salvation to any one trusting him and believing 
in him. Calvin on the other hand connected the doctrine 
of predestination ‘with that of divine providence, as 
Gansfort had done. 

The doctrine of predestination taught by Gansfort and 
Calvin is of course very different from what a great 
many people suppose it to be. Calvin by no means teaches 
that it is useless for man to act, though all of man’s 
actions are dependent on God’s will. All good works, 
says Calvin, are gifts of the spirit of God; while Gans- 


ace SE 


338 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


fort wrote: “God is the real agent in all things, and the 
only creative agent, that is, he so operates in every 
outward action of his creatures that, whether secondary 
causes cooperate or not, whenever he efficaciously wills 
that something be done, the effect always follows. And 
if he does not thus exert his will, nothing will result, 
no matter how great the natural force and zeal exerted 
by other powers. And therefore, though secondary causes 
may be true causes, still in comparison with the first 
cause they are to be regarded as mere occasions, so that 
indeed all our care and thought may fittingly and wisely 
be cast on him”®’. 

There is something sublime about the thought that, 
whenever we lift up’our hand, it is God who assists us 
in doing it, — he the master and controlling power of 
the world, the planets, and all the stars. Wherefore 
Motley bears this witness: ‘‘The doctrine of predestina- 
tion, the consciousness of being chosen soldiers of Christ, 
inspired those Puritans who founded the commonwealths 
of England, of Holland, and of America with a contempt 
of toil, danger, and death which enabled them to accom- 
plish things almost supernatural. No uncouthness of 
phraseology, no unlovely austerity of deportment, could, 
except to vulgar minds, make that sublime enthusiasm 
ridiculous, which on either side of the ocean ever con- 
fronted tyranny with dauntless front, and welcomed 
death on battlefield, scaffold, or rack with perfect com- 
posure. The early Puritan at least believed. The very 
intensity of his belief made him, all unconsciously to 
himself and narrowed as was his view of his position, 
the great instrument by which the widest human liberty 
was to be gained for all mankind”. 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 339 


Vv 


One important question still remains to be considered, 
namely the influence exerted by the Christian Renais- 
sance on the revival of learning North of the Alps. We 
found that the Yssel country, where the movement 
originated, and the cities of Deventer and Zwolle in 
. particular, were closely in touch with the prosperous 
‘cities in Flanders, and we noted that the Christian 
'Renaissance, though essentially a religious movement, 
“ partook not a little of the aid that wealth and leisure gave 
to the cultivation of learning and art in Flanders. In 
Deventer and Zwolle the schools were founded which 
became the two main fountain-heads of the Transalpine 
Renaissance — in Deventer and Zwolle, and not at 
Windesheim or Mount St. Agnes. Groote’s followers, 
though they were not aware of it themselves, were driven 
by an unseen but exceedingly powerful force to advance 
the cause of learning. This force or impulse was not 
generated by the Italian Renaissance, but by a combina- 
tion of circumstances very much like those which in Italy 
had given birth to a great revival of learning. Groote 
and his disciples said a great deal about despising the 
“world”. At the same time, however, they, more perhaps 
than any other organized group of men and women in 
Transalpine Europe, wrought to make this world a better 
place in which to live. Beset on all sides by the powers 
of monasticism, asceticism, and decadent scholasticism, 
they gradually moved away from these very forces. 

Shortly after Groote’s death hundreds of boys gather- 
ed in the school of John Cele at Zwolle. From every 
direction they came, and not only from obscure little 
villages or hamlets, but from Trier, Cologne, Liége, and 
Utrecht, the cathedral cities, famous for centuries as the 


340 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


seats of the best schools in their dioceses. About half 
a century afterwards Wessel Gansfort left Zwolle in 
search of more learning, as untold numbers of other 
youths had done. He had not been trapped in a monas- 
tery. Nothing of the kind. At Cologne he met a Greek 
who probably was one of the fugitives from Constan- 
tinople. Of this man he learned Greek, and from a Jew 
he learned Hebrew. He now knew the three ancient 
languages, and could delve into the rich stores of ancient 
literatures. A decade afterwards Nicholas of Cusa, one 
of the greatest scientists and philosophers of his time, 
bequeathed a large sum of money for the purpose of 
founding a dormitory for poor school boys at Deventer. 
Why did he not want one at Trier, the oldest city in 
Germany, and near his parental home? Why should that 
dormitory be built in distant Deventer? Is not this 
question worth asking? 

Then there was the work of Dringenberg at Schlett- 
stadt in Alsace. He had been educated at Deventer. 
Somehow his pedagogical reforms produced such start- 
ling results that from his school went forth Beatus 
Rhenanus, Wimpheling, Sapidus, and Bucer. The school 
at Schlettstadt became a training school for prospective 
teachers, who in their turn trained hundreds of others. 
And what school in all Europe could equal the fame of 
the one attended by Erasmus? What teacher could boast 
of successes like those achieved by Hegius? Moreover, 
it was Munster which became the chief centre of human- 
ism in Western Germany early in the sixteenth century; 
and it was Murmellius who attracted huge crowds of 
ambitious students from distant Silesia, from districts 
along the Baltic Sea, and from the Rhineland. Who can 
estimate the number of teachers that received their train- 
ing at Munster? In Herford and Minden labored Moller, 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 341 


in Lubeck Bonnus, in Emmerich Aelius, Bredenbach, and 
Uranius, in Diisseldorf Monheim, — the schools at 
Emmerich and Dusseldorf under the rectorate of Breden- 
bach and Monheim are said to have counted 2000 pupils, 
— in Attendorn Miille, in Warendorf Scheve, in Osna- 
brick Scheibing, in Luneburg Tulichius, — who formu- 
lated the famous ‘rules of Tulichius’ or ‘leges Tulichia- 
nae’, — in Borken Gildeshues and Dickmann. Many of 
these men were great scholars, poets, and reformers*’. 
If we add the number of teachers trained at Wesel, 
Rostock, Cassel, Marburg, Groningen, Utrecht, Nijme- 
gen, Amersfoort, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Liége, and Ghent, 
we get a formidable total indeed. 

The German Renaissance was partly a product of the 
Christian Renaissance. Even Mutian Rufus, Erfurt’s 
glory, had received his elementary and secondary educa- 
tion at Deventer. None of the humanists in central 
Germany before 1520 could surpass Gansfort and Wim- 
pheling. And who was called the German Petrarch, if 
not Rudolph Agricola, the pupil of the brethren at Gro- 
ningen? Erasmus rightly said of him that he could have 
become the leader among the most learned humanists 
in Italy itself; for he had baffled the greatest wits at 
Ferrara, — he, the only native of Transalpine Europe 
who before 1500 could meet all their requirements”. 
And Erasmus, what a power he wielded during the first 
three decades of ‘the sixteenth century! 

In France, also, new life was introduced by the Christian 
Renaissance. This movement received in many respects 
a more appreciative welcome in France than in Germany. 
Gansfort and Erasmus consistently avoided Erfurt and 
Leipzig. Groote had shunned the writings of Eckhardt; 
his followers paid very little attention to the works of 
Tauler and the “German Theology”. Standonck gained 


342 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


a larger following among the men of power in France 
than any apostle of the Christian Renaissance ever had 
in German lands. And when the rift deepened between 
the Protestants east and west of the Rhine, it became 
perfectly clear how powerful was the grip of the “New 
Devotion” on Calvinism. The school at Liege became 
the pattern after which the best schools in France were 
modeled, like the one of Gouvea at Bordeaux and 
Baduelle at Nimes”. 

It is interesting to note how many historians have 
assumed that Wittenberg in Germany was the one 
great centre of reform early in the sixteenth century”. 
Luther was the magnetic force whose overwhelming 
influence no Protestant could escape. Yet we find 
Zwingli confessing his indebtedness to Erasmus, and 
denying any connection with Luther before 1518 at least. 
He had explained the gospels for two years before he 
ever had heard about Luther, was his answer to those 
who called him a Lutheran. The first change came to 
Zwingli when he visited Erasmus in 1516. Immediately 
after this he began his career as reformer, which career 
he pursued for at least two years independently of 
Luther. In 1521 Rode and Sagarus came from the 
Netherlands with Hoen’s letter and Gansfort’s writings. 
Bucer, Calvin’s teacher, extolled Rode above Luther, and 
praised Gansfort no less. Zwingli published Hoen’s letter 
in 1525, and used Hoen’s best arguments himself. No- 
where were Gansfort’s works appreciated as they were 
in Switzerland and the Netherlands, if one may judge 
by their circulation. Few men understood Wessel 
Gansfort so well as Huldrich Zwingli. Gansfort and 
Erasmus exerted perhaps more influence on Zwingli than 
did Luther. Henceforth the Protestants in the Low 
Countries and Switzerland were to join hands in a com- 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 343 


mon cause. They were to whitewash their churches, 
resist tyranny and persecution, and oppose both Roman 
Catholics and Lutherans. But the Netherlands remained 
the leaders, As the sixteenth century advanced and 
finally gave place to the seventeenth, the Dutch Republic 
became a mighty force in the realms of theology, science, 
art, and literature. Leiden, not Ztirich, or even Witten- 
berg, was for more than a century to be the foremost 
centre of learning in Protestant Europe. 


VI 


It is by no means an easy task to estimate the influence 
of the Christian Renaissance. In England, for example, 
it was exerted in various ways; chiefly at first through the 
circulation of the “Imitation of Christ’, which soon was 
translated into English, and was almost as widely read 
as the Bible itself. During the sixteenth century the 
teachings of the new religious movement were dissem- 
inated everywhere in England through the writings of 
Englishmen, Dutchmen, and Flemings. 

The Catholics in England owe much to the Christian 
Renaissance. This is apparent from the edition of the 
“Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Reg- 
ular at St. Monica’s in Louvain”, by Hamilton®*. The 
chronicle relates that “towards the close of the reign of 
Elizabeth, and in the earlier years of James I, a large 
number of English ladies, whose families had remained 
loyal to the ancient Faith, despairing of being able to 
enjoy the happiness of religious life in their own country, 
betook themselves to the communities established on the 
Continent......... These communities weathered the 
storms of war and revolution in their continental homes, 
and the greater part of them have, during the nineteenth 


344 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


century, returned to England”. Two of these communi- 
ties belonged to the Augustinian Canonesses Regular, 
one of which was founded at Louvain in 1609, and the 
other at Bruges in 1629. The latter is still in existence, 
while the former was transplanted to. England. Many 
ladies of high rank joined them from time to time, and 
their experiences form an important chapter in the 
history of English Catholicism. Hamilton adds this 
remark: “A nun of that Congregation [Windesheim] 
was placed at the head of St. Ursula’s community [at 
Louvain] and the spirit of such saintly men as Gerard 
Groot and Thomas a Kempis, with the largeness of 
mind, the simplicity and austerity, and the noble tradi- 
tions of Windesem, formed the spirit of the infant 
community of St. Ursula’s, which, in 1515, finally em- 
braced the Windesem rule. The Congregation of Win- 
ROGET sais ee survives in spirit and discipline among 
our English nuns through their descent from the sisters 
of St. Ursula’s of Louvain’®. 

It may be noted here that the English convent at 
Bruges still observes the rules of the Congregation of 
Windesheim, while St. Ursula’s at Louvain was founded 
by seven sisters from the convent of Diepenveen. They 
arrived at Louvain in 1415, where for a period of five 
years (1415-1420) they lived in a house on the Halve- 
straat as Sisters of the Common Life. Their prioress 
was Margareth Scherpings, formerly a member of the 
first sister-house at Deventer: the “House of Master 
Gerard’**. Thus not only the spirit of Windesheim 
survives among the nuns in England to-day, but also 
that of the old home of Gerard Groote, the inaugurator 
of the “‘New Devotion”. These nuns can point to theif 
spiritual descent from the very first Sisters of the Com- 
mon Life who owed their home to the great master 
himself. 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 345 


Catholicism in England also is greatly indebted to the 
labors of the Jesuits. They were descendants of the 
Brethren of the Common Life, were intimately connected 
with the life-work of Groote and Cele through the in- 
fluence of Standonck, Béda, and Loyola, and carried 
with them wherever they went the gospel of the “New 
Devotion”: the “Imitation of Christ’’. 

More important is the history of the Church of Eng- 
land, also known as the Anglican or Episcopal Church. 
This church, like the Reformed churches, adopted at first 
the chief tenets of the Calvinistic faith, but has always 
differed from the latter on the question of rites and 
church government. It owed much to Wicliff, who, long 
before the days of the Reformers, had insisted on the 
general use of the sacrament of the Eucharist. He had 
also preached against the abuses in the Church, though 
this activity he merely had in common with many con- 
tinental reformers of his time. Many of the other 
principles of English Protestantism were the products 
of the Christian Renaissance. This Protestantism greatly 
resembled that of Hoen, Bucer, Zwingli, and Calvin. 
Moreover, the researches of Burrage®* have clearly 
demonstrated that the beginnings of independency, or 
Congregationalism, are not to be traced to the Brownists 
or Barrowists, but to the Congregational Puritanism 
advocated by Henry Jacob and William Bradshaw about 
1604 and 1605, and later put in practice by various 
Puritan congregations in Holland, whence it was brought 
to America and back into England. “Puritan Congrega- 
tionalism accordingly did not have its source in separa- 
tism, nor was it separatist in spirit, but was constantly 
declared by its upholders as involving a separation only 
from the world, and not from the Church of England”®. 
Hence the following statement by John Robinson, pastor 


346 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


of the Pilgrim Fathers at Leiden, about the time when 
the larger part of his congregation departed for America: 

“To conclude, I believe with my heart before God, and 
profess with my tongue, and have before the world that 
I have one and the same faith, hope, spirit, baptism, and 
Lord which I had in the Church of England and none 
other; that I esteem so many in that church, of what 
state or order soever, as are truly partakers of that faith 
(as I account many thousand to be) for my Christian 
brethren, and myself a fellow-member with them of that 
one ‘mystical body of Christ scattered far and wide 
throughout the world: that I have always in spirit and 
affection all Christian fellowship and communion with 
them, and am most ready in all outward actions and 
exercises of Religion lawful and lawfully done to express 
the same’’®®. 

We should not therefore be surprised to hear the 
following remark made by John Paget in “An Arrow 
against Separation’, printed at Amsterdam in 1618: 
“Seeing Mr. Robinson and his people do now (as divers 
of themselves confess) receive the members of the 
- Church of England into their congregation, and this 
without any renunciation of the Church of England, 
without any repentance for the idolatries committed in 
the Church of England: how can you hold them to be 
a true church and communion with them lawful’*®’? 
Once more we have to listen to a tale of dissatisfaction, 
of the need of separation, of a sort of escape from the 
realm of darkness; and yet how little did the Separatists 
differ from their “idolatrous” friends! A large percentage 
of them for a time at least joined some Classis of the 
Reformed churches in Holland. Many Puritan ministers 
went to Holland in search of greater religious freedom 
than England offered them. Nevertheless, the church 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 347 


they separated from was almost as purely Calvinistic as 
the: Dutch Reformed church. For the same man who 
had taught Calvin the essence of Calvinism formulated 
for the Church of England a goodly share of its new 
theology®*. This man was Martin Bucer. of Schlettstadt, 
the admirer of Hoen and Rode, and in many respects the 
follower of Wessel Gansfort. To Gansfort, through the 
labors of Bucer, Calvin, Zwingli, and their disciples, the 
Anglican church owed much of its Protestantism, just 
as the Calvinists in Holland did®’. 

Those who are interested in the rise of the Baptist 
church will approve the following quotation from Burrage, 
after having become acquainted with the history of the 
“New Devotion”: “It may be more than a coincidence, 
therefore, that later, when the Barrowists had for the 
most part emigrated to Campen in Holland [Kampen on 
the Yssel], the prevalence of Anabaptist views of a Con- 
tinental type became quickly manifest in the congrega- 
tion, and resulted in the formation of the earliest group 
of English Anabaptists of whom we at present have any 
definite knowledge’’”’. 

It would no doubt be a mistake to say that the 
Reformation was the outgrowth of the Italian Renais- 
sance, or that it began with the labors of Martin Luther. 
The term itself was wrongly chosen; it misrepresents the 
true state of affairs, as also does the word Counter- 
Reformation. There was but one reformation, and it 
included the so-called Counter-Reformation. This the 
history of the “New Devotion” very plainly shows, 
though many other causes contributed. 

Thus it must become apparent to every one that few 
religious movements deserve more study than the “New 
Devotion”. This movement inspired men and women 
of all ranks and of many nationalities to increase their 


348 THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 


religious fervor, to follow Christ’s instructions more 
faithfully, and to imitate the apostolic church more 
earnestly. The study of its influence opens up a very 
attractive field of largely unexplored history. The “New 
Devotion” reached down to the people, and welled up 
from the people; it entered the kitchen, the farm-house, 
and the workshop, as well as the school house, the pulpit, 
the office, and the palace; where the great humanists - 
refused to go it readily came, and where they were for- 
bidden to enter, it approached unhindered. Selecting 
noble and helpful sayings from the literatures of the 
Ancients, and combining these with the wisdom of 
philosophers and saints of later periods, the followers 
of Groote and Gansfort interpreted all learning in the 
light of Christ’s teachings. Whatever was pure and 
saintly in the religion of the Church they aimed to 
preserve or perfect, and the abuses that had crept in 
among clergy and people they sought to do away with 
or hide under the cover of love. 
Henceforth the “New Devotion” or Christian Renais- 
sance should occupy a prominent place in the history of 
religion and modern education, of English, German, 
and French literatures, and of modern philosophy. To 
those not interested in religion, philosophy, or education 
it nevertheless ought not to remain an unknown force 
or a negligible quantity, for the greatest wars of the 
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were to a very 
large degree the outcome of the changes in religious 
views, owing partly to the influence of this movement. 
For once the so-called civilized nations of Europe did 
not fight for material possessions, as now religion and 
theology engaged most of their attention. The period 
from 1520 till 1650, therefore, is unique in the history 
of mankind. It was shortly before and during this period 


THE CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE 349 


that the Christian Renaissance helped to shape the 
- destinies of England, Holland, Spain, Germany, and 
France. Even to-day it still sways the minds of multitudes, 
and it will continue to exert much influence as long 
as the “Imitation of Christ” is read, and the views of 
Gansfort, Erasmus, Luther, Bucer, Zwingli, Calvin, and 
Loyola are upheld. 

To conclude, the greatest leaders of the Reformation 
— both Protestant and Roman Catholic — appear, at 
least as we have known them, like the visible portions of 
huge icebergs above the surface of the sea of the old 
history. We have looked at these men as sailors in polar 
seas see the small visible parts of icebergs, thinking little 
about the vast masses of ice below the surface, which in 
turn were once parts of a still greater mass. The farther 
these icebergs travel, the farther they move apart. Yet 
they all have come from the same place. So it was with 
the men who in the age of the Reformation founded 
great churches. We seldom remember the sources from 
where they received most of their so-called new views. 
One of the greatest of these sources was the movement 
we have just studied, — the Christian Renaissance. 


en Doorn see 
i 





NOTES TO INTRODUCTION 


1. The Grebbe is a small river to the west of the Veluwe. 

2. W. L. Bouwmeester, De ontwikkeling van Nederlands 
landschappen, The Hague IgII, p. 334. 

3. Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, Charles VII, Louis XI et les premiéres 
années de Charles VIII (1422-1492), in: E. Lavisse, Histoire de 
France, vol. IV2, Paris 1902, pp. 115, 147. 

4. W. Denton, England in the fifteenth century, London 
1888, pp. 118-123. 

5. K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, vol. IV, Berlin 1896, 
PP. 435-488. 

6. H. Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, vol. I, Brussels 1902, 
pp. VIII-IX, 27, 30, 32, 156-158, 161-169, 244-245; vol. II, Brus- 
sels 1903, pp. 178-180, 380-383, 304-395. 

7, H. Pirenne, Hist. de Belgique, vol. I, pp. 326-327, 336. — 
K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, vol. III, Berlin 1895, pp. 
310-312. 

8. H. Pirenne, Hist. de Belgique, vol. I, pp. 156-161. 

9. Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, 1. c., p. 170: “La cour la plus brillante 
de l’Europe, au milieu du XVe siécle, était celle de Phillippe 
le Bon, duc de Bourgogne. Aucune région en effet n’était aussi 
riche que les Pays-Bas, qui lui appartenaient, et Phillippe était 
le plus prodigue des hommes. II passa son régne dans un long 
éblouissement. Sa cour, comme plus tard celle des rois de 
France, fut le rendez-vous des seigneurs de ses immenses 
domaines; ils imitaient ses vices et dissipaient leur patrimoine 
en dépenses extravagantes. ........ Sa cour fut vraiment une 
préfiguration de la cour de Versailles. Tout y était réglé pour 
relever la majesté du prince. C’est la que fut inventée ou tout 
au moins développée l’étiquette des monarchies chrétiennes”. 

10. H. Pirenne, Hist. de Belgique, vol. III, pp. 266-267. 


35 


NOTES TO CHAPTER I 


1. In the biographies and other sources I have used, his 
name appears as Gerardus Magnus, Gerardus Groot, Gerardus 
Groet, Gerardus Groit, Gheryt (de) Grote, Gherit (de) Groete, 
Gherd or Gheerd (de) Groote, etc. I have decided to call him 
Groote instead of De Groote, simply because he is better known 
by that name. In the documents his name usually appears as 
De Groote, but most manuscripts have the name Groot, Groet, 
or Groit without the article, and nearly all modern writers have 
called him Groote, and not De Groote. 

2. J. Badius Ascensius, Vita Thomae Malleoli a Campis, 
ch. VIII, based on: Th. a4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. 
XVIII, § 4. ; 

3. J. de Hullu, De statuten van het Meester-Geertshutis te 
Deventer, p. 74. — R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 11. 

4. J. de Hullu, De statuten van het Meester-Geertshuis, p. 74. 

5. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, pp. 333-334. 

6. H. Denifle, Cartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. III, 
Pp. 92-93. — R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, pp. 1-2. 

7. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, pp. 355-356. 

8. H. Denifle, Cartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol, III, 
Pp. 92, note 3I. 

9. J. Badius Ascensius, Vita Thom. Malleoli, ch. VIII. 

10. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 334. y 

11. J. D. Van Doornink, Kamerrekeningen van Deventer, 
vol. III, part 1, nos. 339, 541, 615, 625, 636. 

12. One at Aachen (see: G. Dumbar, Kerkelyk en wereltlyk 
Deventer, vol. I, p. 548. — R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 3), 
and one at Utrecht (see: R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 3. — 
Thomas a4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. II, § 2). 

13. Thomas a4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XI, § 7. — 
R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 2. — P. Horn, Vita Gerardi 
Magni, p. 333. 

14. Thomas 4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. III, § 2. 

15. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 2. 

16. Thomas 4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. IV, § 2, — 
R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 3. 


352 


NOTES 353 


17. J. G. R. Acquoy, Gerardi Magni epistolae XIV, p. 62. 

18. G. Dumbar, Kerkelyk en Wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, pp. 
507-510, 549-550. — J. de Hullu, De statuten van het MeesSter- 
Geertshuis te Deventer, pp. 63, 75. — J. G. R. Acquoy, Gerardi 
Magni epistolae XIV, p. 63. 

19. J. de Hullu, De statuten van het Meester-Geertshuis, p, 71. 

20. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 5. 

21. W. Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis van Nederland védr de Her- 
vorming, vol. II, part II, pp. 119-120. — J. G. R. Acquoy, Het 
Klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, pp. 27-28. 

22. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. VII, § 1-2. 
See also: ch. VI, § 1 of this same work, and D. A. Brinkerink, 
Biographieén van beroemde mannen uit den Deventer-kring 
(1901), p. 413. 

23. The following works may be recommended for a study 
of the life and writings of this remarkable mystic: J. v. Ruus- 
broec, Wlrken, ed. J. B. David, Ghent 1856-1869. — J. Ruys- 
broeck, Alle de werken in nieuwere taal overgezet, ed. H. W. E. 
Moller, Bussum 1914. — Henricus ex Pomerio (Bogaerts), De 
origine monasterii Viridis Vallis et de gestis patrum et fratrum 
in primordiali fervore ibidem degentium, in: Analecta Bollandia, 
vol. IV, pp. 263-333, and in particular: pp. 283-308. — A. A. van 
Otterloo, Johannes Ruysbroeck, Amsterdam 1874, The Hague 
1896. — W. de Vreese, Het leven en de werken van Jan van 
Ruusbroec, Ghent - 1895-1896. — <A. Auger, Etude sur les 
mystiques des Pays-Bas au Moyen-Age, in: Mémoires couronnés 
et autres mémoires de l’Acad. Royale de Belgique, Brussels 
1902, pp. 157-264. — Tihe best work in English is: E. Underhill, 
Ruysbroeck, London 1915. 

24. H. Pomerius, De origine monasterii Viridis Vallis, p. 289. 

25. A. Auger, Etude sur les mystiques des Pays-Bas au 
Moyen-Age, p. 171. Cele did not commence his teaching career 
in 1377, but about the year 1374. See: M. Schoengen, Jacobus 
Traiecti alias de Voecht narratio de inchoatione domus cleri- 
corum in Zwollis, p. 6, note 3. 

26. Thomas 4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. VIII, § 1. 

27. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 5. 

28. M. Schoengen, Jacobus Traiecti alias de Voecht narratio, 
p. 5, note 2. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XV, § 1. 
— Thomas 4 Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. VI, § 2. — J. Busch, 
Chronicon» Windeshemense, p. 252. 


B54 NOTES 


29. Thomas 4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch, VIII, § 2; 
che X Vii Sr: 

30. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 252. — D. A. 
Brinkerink, Vita venerabilis Ioannis Brinckerinck, p. 259. — 
Thomas a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XV, § 1. — Thomas 
a Kempis, Chronicon canonicorum regularium Montis Sanctae 
Agnetis, ch. I. — Thomas a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. VI, § 1. — 
P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, pp. 341-342. 

31. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XV, § I. 

32. The sermon preached by Groote on that day has been 
preserved in several manuscripts; it was called Sermo contra 
Focaristas, and has been printed by A. Clarisse and his son 
J. Clarisse, in: Archief voor Nederlandsche Kerkgeschiedenis, 
vol. I, Leiden 1829, pp. 364-379; vol. II, Leiden 1830, pp. 307-395; 
vol. VIII, Leiden 1837, pp. 5-107. For the date when this sermon 
was preached see: A. and J. Clarisse, Over den geest en de 
denkwijze van Geert Groete, in: Archief voor Ned. Kerkgesch., 
vol. I, p. 385, note 6. As for its celebrity see: K. Grube, Gerhard 
Groote und seine Stiftungen, pp. 35, 96. 

33. D. A. Brinkerink, De vita venerabilis Ioannis Brincker- 
inck, p. 324. — D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén van beroemde 
mannen uit den Deventer-kring, 1901, p. 417. — Frensweger 
manuscript, p. 7. : é 

34. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 342: “Fecit igitur 
egregitus iste predicator signa et prodigia magna in populo, non 
autem in despicabili et mortifera carne, sed revera in ipsius 
interioris hominis adorande Trinitatis ymagine, videlicet mortuos 
suscitando”. — Thomas a Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. VI, § 1: 
“Vita vox magistri praedicantis tanto fortius valuit in cordibus 
audientium, quanto perfectius caeteros praeibat in via virtutum”. 
Many examples of conversions are related by the biographers. 
See: W. J. Kihler, Johannes Brinckerinck en zijn klooster te 
Diepenveen, pp. 135-136. 

35. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén van beroemde mannen 
uit den Deventer-kring, 1902, p. 24. — D. A. Brinkerink, De 
vita venerabilis Ioannis Brinckerinck, p. 324. 

36. Thomas 4a Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. XI, § 1. — D. & 
Brinkerink, Vita venerabilis Ioannis Brinckerinck, p. 324. 

37. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XI, § 1. The church 
of St. Lebwin at Deventer was named after Lebwin, an English 
missionary who had tried to convert the Saxons and Frisians 


NOTES 355 


north and east of the Yssel. For the history of this church see: 
G. Dumbar, Kerkelyk en Wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, pp. 235-441. 

38. D. A. Brinkerink, Vita venerabilis Ioannis Brinckerinck, 
Tee ied. 

39. One of the men who accompanied Groote as a rule was 
John Brinckerinck; see p. 87. 

40. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén van beroemde mannen 
uit den Deventer-kring, 1902, p. 24. 

41. See p, 44. 

42a Seep. 13: 

43. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. VIII, § 3. — 
D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 417. — P. Horn, Vita 
Gerardi Magni, p. 348. The edict was promulgated between 
August and October 21, 1383; see: W. J. Kitthler, De prediking 
van Geert Groote, p. 224. 

44. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 417. A letter by 
William de Salvarvilla to Pope Urban VI, asking for a license 
from the pope for Groote is found in the Opera of Thomas a 
Kempis, behind the Vita Gerardi Magni. This letter was written 
on the 21st of October, 1383. 

45. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 417. — Th. a 
Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. IX, § 2. — M. Schoengen, 
Jacobus T'raiecti alias de Voecht narratio, p. 15, note I. 

46. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 418. 

47. M. Schoengen, Jacobus Traiecti alias de Voecht narratio, 
pp. 6, 17. — J. H. Gerretsen, Florentius Radewijns, p. 66, note 3. 

48. He translated the seven penitential psalms (Psalm 6, 32, 
38, 5I, 102, 130, 143), and 63 other psalms. See: R. Dier de 
Muiden, Scriptum, p. 6. — P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 349. 
— W. Moll, Geert Groote’s dietsche vertalingen, pp. 2-77, 107- 
112, 113-148, 149-180, 181-220. For the glosses see: W. Moll, 
Geert Groote’s dietsche vertalingen, pp. 42-44, 55-59, 62-67. 

49. R. Dier dé Muiden, Scriptum, p. 10. — Th. a Kempis, 
Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XVI, § 4. For the history of his bones 
see: G. Dumbar, Kerkelyk en Wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, pp. 
507-510. — J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. 
Lips SZ. 

50. See: Appendix A. 

51. E. Underhill, Ruysbroeck, pp. 66-67, 184, 88. 

52. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 30: “Venerabilibus 
patris meis et dominis universaliter intime commendari intimius 


356 NOTES 


desidero, precipue capitibus prepostiti et priori [Ruysbroeck], 
cuius scabellum pedum tam in hac vita quam in futura, quia 
sibi anima mea pre cunctis mortalibus amore et reverencia 
conglutinata est, fieri concupisco”. 

53. a lbid'p.°30; sp. -51- 

54. See: J. H. Gerretsen, Florentius Radewijns, pp. 1-42. 

55. G. Groote, Sermo de nativitate Domini, fol. 122>-123. 

56. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 171: Adam, 
undique bene formatus divinis manibus, suasu mulieris, cum 
toto genere humano cecidit. 

BAL eid se Pe 171s 

58. Ibid., p. 181: “Inde namque omnes malitiae cupiditatum 
nostrarum originem sumunt, quia supremae rationi sensitivae 
vires ea caro non obediunt. Quae ei ideo non obediunt, quia 
ipsa ratio Deo non obedit nec subjicitur’. See also p. 161 and 
p. 233 of this same treatise. 

59. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 13: “Et 
ante et post ibidem pulcerrime probat [Bernard in the seventh 
epistle to Adam Monachus], nec Papam posse dare licentiam, 
ut scandala fiant; et si Papa praeceperit, vel licentiaverit, illicite 
sibi quis obedit”. 

60. Ibid., p. 65: “Rursus inde est, quod quidam adeo magnif- 
icant Ecclesiae judicia et ab ipsa judicanda, quia sunt notiora 
eis quam Dei mandata, vel praecepta divina aut jura naturae, 
propter cordis tenebras nescientes vim legum et institutionum 
Ecclesiasticarum”. — Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 207: “Imo 
et homo interior non in propriam, nec in Dei imaginem, sed in 
bestiam et diabolicum monstrum transformatur”, 

61. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, p. 91. 

62. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. G. Bonet-Maury, p. 99: “Quam 
fraternitatem si relinqueremus, necesse esset principem relin- 
quere et divinum exemplare, Quem in secreto animo, in interiore 
homine, divinos complexus noscendo, concepimus”’. — Tractatus 
de matrimonio, p. 181: “Omnis ergo tentationis diabolicae et ~ 
traditionis Satanae et cujuslibet cupiditatis origo est delicto 
supremae rationis, Dei capacis, sed se Deo non unientis, Deum 
cognoscere non curantis”. — P. 193: “Nam resistentia est in 
suprema ratione, ubi major hominis consistit libertas, quam in 
inferiore sensitiva, in qua est concupiscentia carnalis, cui saepe, 
Sive velit, sive nolit, in suo objecto delectabili complacet”. 

63. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. G. Bonet-Maury, p. 90. 


NOTES 357 


64. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 198: “Nam 
ignorantia illa est Legis Dei et naturalis, et conscientiae propriae, 
et lapsus humani, et est ex neglecta sui ipsius custodia et 
notitia. Ex quibus ignoratis et neglectis omnia mala oriuntur 
et sequuntur; nam omnis contumelia filiae Diaboli, sicut gloria 
filiae Regis, ab intus est. Qui intus se non’ custodit, exterius 
vane laborat”. 

65. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 94. 

66. G. Groote, Sermo de paupertate, p. 438: “O efficacis 
paupertatis dies, que est dies spiritualis Iherusalem, interne 
visionis et pacis! O dies aggressus Domini in templum suum 
vivum!” 

67. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 419: “My in- 
vloyen alsoe vele verborgenre synne uytten psalmen, die mij 
inwert trecken, alsoe dat. ic gene zwaerheit en voele in den 
leesen, mer ic heb der grote gnoechte in”. 

68. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. G. Bonet-Maury, p. 100: “Cave 
ne Deum derelinquas. Si ipsum reliqueris, qui omne bonum est 
ipse, quid restabit tibi nisi omne malum?” 

69. G. Groote, De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 130: “Regimen 
animarum mundat conscientiam et aperit homini Ecclesiam 
triumphantem et coelum, et unit hominem corpori Christi 
mystico”. See p. 34, note 140. 

70. Th.'a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XII, §§ 4, 13. 

71. R. Rier de Muiden, Scriptum, pp. 6-7. — W. J. Kuhler, 
Johannes Brinckerinck, p. 184. 

72. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 365: “Omnes lection- 
es, quas didicistis, reputabuntur vobis sicut oracio dominicalis 
propter piam intencionem, quam ad Deum in studendo habuis- 
tis’. See also: G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, pp. 83-84. 

73. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 358. 

74. G. Groote, Sermo de nativitate Christi, fol. roga-b: “Ut 
finis precepti et omnis exercitacionis nostre caritas sit et fiat 
de corde puriori, consciencia meliori et fide minus ficta, ut quia 
simus quasi os Domini, preciosum secundum prophetam a vili 
separentes”; fol. 117: “Quod si sic non est caritas de corde 
puro et fide non ficta que finis est precepti”. — Epistolae, ed. 
X. de Ram, p. 109. — J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, 
p. 264. 

75. G. Bonet-Maury, Gérard de Groote, p. 96. 

76. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 97: 


358 NOTES 


“Vicesimum quintum dictum meum est, quod adhuc exeundum 
et recedendum est ab omni amicitia carnali et mundana omnium 
carnaliter et seculariter viventium”. 

77. Ibid., p. 100: “Verum omnes etiam, tam malos quam 
bonos, spiritualiter amare debemus et spirituali jungi amicitia, 
et, si necesse vel congruum fuerit, etiam societate corporali 
conjungi; maxime, si fortes fuerimus, ne, si debiles sumus, cum 
alios ad nos spiritualiter trahere nitimur, nos ipsos carnaliter 
tractos sentiamus. , 

78. Th. a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XIV. 

VO. epic.) Ch. X 11528 1, 

80. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 81. 

81. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 73: “Ante omnia 
videtur mihi vobis congruum, ut sitis laetus spiritualiter; nam ~ 
tristitia et pusillanimitas et solitudo, si ad multum veniunt, 
melancolicum faciunt”. — P. 90: “Tristitia, quae nocet cordi...”. 

82. Th. a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XVIII, § to. 

83. Ibid., ch. XI, §§ 1-2. 

84. Ibid., ch. XVIII, § 8. 

85. G. Groote, Prologue to his translation of certain church 
hymns, in: W. Moll, Geert Groote’s Dietsche vertalingen, p. 53: 
“Want die woerde sijn ende dienen omme die sinne, ende die 
sinne niet omme die woerde”. 

86. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 33; ed. X. de 
Ram, p. 74. 

87. See pp. 47-48, 63-65. 

88. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed, X. de Ram, p. 87. — Sermo de 
nativ. Domini, fol. 108%». 

89. G. Groote, De Simonia, p. 5. 

90. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, pp. 77-78. 

gt. G. Groote, De Simonia, p. 30. 

92. The Horologium was written by Suso, a German mystic. 

93. G. Groote, De Simonia, pp. 32-33. 

94. W. Moll, Geert Groote’s sermoen over de vrijwillige ar- 
moede, p. 430: “Dat hij om dergelijke reden ook ongezind was 
monnik te worden, meen ik voor zeker te moeten aannemen”. 

95. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, pp. 91-92: “In 
nomine Domini ingredere monasterium hoc ea intentione et 
proposito tanquam in eo eligens et assumens totius tuae vitae 
statum Deo magis beneplacitum et meliorem et securiorem inter 
omnes status, quos in hac vita invénire potes, qui tibi de 


NOTES 359 


praesenti possunt contingere’. For other examples, where 
Groote advises some of his followers to enter a monastery, see: 
J. G. R. Acquoy, Gerardi Magni Epistolae XIV., p. 77. 

96. G. Groote, Raadgevingen aan eene Kluizenaarster, pp. 
434-437. 

97. For eight other examples see: G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. 
J. G. R. Acquoy, p. 77. 

98. See p. 22. — G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, 
p. 77: “Etiam, secundum meum videre, non auderem vobis 
consulere quod intraretis religionem, licet non confidam nec 
confidendum sit mihi, quia ignorans viam Dei. Desiderium meum 
est secundum cor meum, ut maneatis in mundo et non sitis de 
mundo”. 

99. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, pp. 46-47: “Nescitis, 
quia tenemini reddere testimonia iure divino? Et nescitis, quod 
maximum et fidei negocium vertitur?........ Quid? Est vobis 
dies posita, in qua sanabimini, quam, si preteritis, vos negligitis? 
Quid est, si modicum absens fueris, quod vobis decrescet? Vos 
non solum testis esse deberetis, sed consolator, sed promotor 
pro vestris fratribus Zwollensibus, quos scitis, qualiter sunt 
itba tions ee Cavete, ne videamini fugere, qui stare debetis 
in acie. Numquid pro vobis et vestris pugnamus? Numquid 
decet et vos compugnare? Magnus promissor magni sit solutor. 
Non dicatur amicus gaudii sed necessitatis”’. 

100. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 221: “Omnia 
cedunt pecuniae. Nummus vincit, Christus repellitur: praecipue 
in congregationibus’. ‘ 

1o1. G. Groote, De Simonia, p. 3; Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, 
p. 96-97; Raadgev. aan eene kluiz., p. 436. 

102. G. Groote, Protestatio de veridica Evangelii praedica- 
tione, ed. Th. 4 Kempis, Opera, ed. Somm., p. 782. 

103. Groote divides all sources of the Christian religion of 
his time into four’classes: (1) The Bible, which is infallible; (2) 
the writings of the recognized leaders of the Christian church. 
who had been inspired by the Holy Ghost; (3) the determina- 
tions of the doctors; (4) visions of various kinds. G. Groote, 
Sermo de nativitate Christi, fol. 1oo>-110#: “In primo ordine 
sunt que de Christi nativitate, vita vel morte in canonica 
scriptura, quibus contrarium sentire fas non est, continentur. 
In secundo ordine sunt que sanctis aliquibus de eisdem sunt vel 
dicuntur postea revelata. Tercio que assercioni doctorum vel 


360 ‘NOTES 


verisimili coniecture, vel probabili argumento, vel rationi 
triumphanti innituntur, ut secundum hec tria vel verisimilia vel 
probabilia vel rationabilia vocentur. In quarto autem ordine 
multa secundum et ad nostre parvitatis amminiculum ymaginata 
et ficta modo inferius annotando assumuntur”. 

104. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, part 3, p. 65. 

105. G. Groote, Epistolae (Hague Manuscript), fol. 2308: 
“Sic suggessit mens, que valde unitatem desiderat; que vellet 
quod ambo pontifices cum omnibus cardinalibus cantarent in 
celi empirio ‘gloria in excelsis’ et alius verus Eliachim poneret 
pacem et unitatem in terris ........ sed hec est hora et potestas 
tenebrarum”. 

106. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 53: “Estimacio 
mea est, quod scisma hoc sine ciatrice aut, ut magis opinor, 
sine fistula profunda non sanabitur aut consuetur. Diu dis- 
positum est corpus ad lapsum, sed iam caput vehementer 
dolemus”. 

107. G. Groote, De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 129: “Unde 
ista est spiritualissima negociatio. Nam solvendo aperit Pres- 
byter coelum, et repellendo claudit. ........ Et est etiam magna 
potestas celebrandi, unde a pluribus dicitur, quod Papa est 
potentior, quia Presbyter est, quam quia Papa”. 

108. Ibid., pp. 120-121. 

109. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, pp. 71-73. 

110. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 61: “Si 
tibi Papa vel Episcopus, vel Superior, sub quaectinque poena 
praeciperet, etiam sub poena excommunicationis, suspensionis, 
depositionis, vel privationis, ut rem sacram tangas, velut 
minister Ecclesiae, ved sacrum officium ut minister Ecclesiae 
peragas, te non contrito in mortali existente, nulla et obedientis 
humana debet ad hoc compellere”. 

111. Ibid., pp. 64-65, 73. 

112. Ibid., pp. 68-60, 106, 82, 60, 90, 70, 54, 62. 

113. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, p. 86. 

114. Ibid., p. 83: “Quid est hoc, quod presbyter eum absolvit 
in terris, qui non absolvitur in coelis? Ostendit eum ecclesiae 
absolutum, quem mater ecclesia immaculata non suscepit. - In- 
tromittitur ad extra per presbyterum, sed repellitur ab intra, 
quem tamen ad intus admissum presbyter, interiora ejus 
perscrutatus, ostendit vel dissimulat. Dicit verbo: ‘Absolvo te’; 
dicit sibi ipsi mente contrarium”, 


NOTES 361 


115. Ibid., p. 83: “Credo orationem pro eis magis utilem . 
quam regimen; item praedicationem et monitionem quam 
absolutionem”; p. 85: “Ergo omnino primo laborandum est ad 
eorum conversionem et precibus et monitionibus, imo et 
poenitentiarum injunctionibus, antequam ad eorum absolutionem 
procedatur’. — Cautele confessorum circa magnos peccatores 
adhibendi, fol. 126, 

116. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. G. Bonet-Maury, p. 97. 

117. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, pp. 21-23. 

118. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, p. 28. 

119. W. Preger, Beitrage zur Geschichte der religidsen 
Bewegung in den Niederlanden (1350-1400), pp. 62-63, p. 23. 

120. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, pp. 20-32, 
34-35. 

121. Ibid., p. 38. — J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, 
oh esha 

122. W. J. Ktihler, Levensbeschrijvingeén van devote zusters 
te Deventer, p. 46: “Qui eciam secundum consilium magistri 
Gerardi multa pauperibus distribuerat”. 

123. G. Groote, De simonia, p. Io. 

124. Th. A Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XVIII, § 19. 

125. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 94: “Et non 
moveat vos, quod aliqui habeant propria”. 

126. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 41: “Indigeo 
pecuniis. Exhaustus, Deo gracias, pene sum”. — P. 37: “Everar- 
dus noster in Domino in Campis receptus indiget pecunie, 
vestium, et re vera non habui, ut possem sibi sicut desiderarem 
succurrere”’. Therefore Groote asks Cele to help him. 

127. G. Groote, Sermo de paupertate, pp. 434-436. 

128. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 422. — Th. a 
Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XI, § 3. 

129. These passages are: Matthew XIX, 10-12; Luke XIV, 
20; I. Corinthians,.VII, 26, 27, 35; Augustine, Nona confessio: 
“Convertisti me ad Te, ut neque uxorem quaererem”. 

130. G. Groote, De simonia, p. 13. 

131. G. Groote, De matrimonio, pp. 174, 160. 

132. Ibid., pp. 231-233, 227. 

133. G. Groote, Zed. toespraak, p. 306. 

134. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 108. 

135. G. Groote, Zed. toespraak, p. 307. 

136. Ibid., ed. G. Bonet-Maury, p. 96. 


362 NOTES 


137. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 422. — Thomas 
a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XIV, § 4. 

138. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 84. 

130. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 41: “Nihil tantum 
proficit contra temptacionem dyaboli, sicut anime hilaritas et 
confidencia in Domino”. 

140. G. Groote, Zedelijke Toespraak, p. 301. 

141. G. Groote, De simonia, p. 24: “Unde under desen drien 
is dat hoechste geistlike guet doechde unde mynne unde is 
vele geistliker, dan de andere, want se den menschen geistliker 
maken in em selven unde gode naer verenen in den geiste, dan 
de tekene der sacramente of miracles of prophecies”. _ 

142. Ibid., pp. 24-25: “Item de doechde syn boven doechden, 
de ene boven den anderen, na eren grade unde eren ambochten, 
unde al syn se um de mynne; unde in der mynne verenighen 
se uns mit gode unde mit den hilghen geiste. Als vele tilghen 
komen wt eenre wortelen also werden gheboren vele duechden 
wt eenre mynnen”. 

143. G. Groote, Zedelijke Toespraak, pp. 299-300. 

144. Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XVIII, § 20. 

145. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 79. 

146. G. Groote, Zed. toespraak, pp. 303-304. See also: G. 
Groote, Tractatus in divinitate super septem verba dominica, 
fol. 259°: “Dimittite et dimittetur nobis. Hec est doctrina novi 
testamenti. Hoc est quod Dominus in morte crucis quasi in 
testamenta nobis legavit ut dimittamus nobis iniuriantibus sicut 
ipse crucifixosibus’’. 

147. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 80: “Domine, 
omnia mea et me ipsum tibi obtuli et superioribus, et me ipsum 
abnegavi propter te; et hoc majus est omnibus aliis, quae in 
mundo potui facere”. 

148. Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. XVIII, 8§ 5-6. 

149. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. H. Nolte, p. 294. 

150. Ibid., ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, pp. 98-99; ed. H. Nolte, pp. 
291-293; ed. W. Preger, p. 35. 

151. Copiarum literarum nostrarum, in: Ms. no. 70 H 75, 
Royal ‘Library, The Hague, fol. 14, 2>, 3b, 7», 

152. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 355. 

153. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. H. Nolte, p. 283; ed. W. Preger, 
p. 35: “Semper sum inutilis, semper garrulus, semperque avarus 
et peravarus librorum”. 


NOTES 363 


154. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. H. Nolte, p. 296. — M. Schoen- 
gen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 25, p. 76. 

155. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 76. 

156. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, p. 304. 
— M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 26. — G. Groote, 
Epistolae, ed. H. Nolte, pp. 290-291, p. 302. — W. Preger, 
Beitrage zur Geschichte der religidsen Bewegung in den 
Niederlanden, p. 30, note I. 

157. Th. a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. X, § 1. 

158. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, pp. 35-36. 

159. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. Clarisse, pp. 22-24: “Et 
quomodo quis coecus aliis ducatum praebeat? Si coecos coeci 
ducent, coecorum omnes coeci et duces in praecipitium cadunt. 
Quomodo curabit scientiam, qui non habet scientiam? ........ 
Et quomodo quis docere potest illud, quod nunquam didicit? 
Et speculatores positi sunt Curati, quoniam tenentur omnia 
scire, quae ad eorum officium pertinent, tanquam mundiores 
oculos ad omnia et longiora et densiora discernenda, et ad 
praemuniendum et ad defendendum habentes”. 

160. See p. 27. 

161. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. J. G. R. Acquoy, p. 71; ed. 

W. Preger, pp. 38-39; ed. H. Nolte, pp. 290-291. — M. Schoen- 
gen, Die Schule von Zwolle, pp. 36-37. 
' 162. See p. 15, note 44; the translation in our text is taken 
from: Th. 4 Kempis, Works, vol. III: The chronicle of the 
Canons Regular of Mount St, Agnes, edited by J. P. Arthur, 
9. 163. 

163. The translation given in our text is found in: Th. a 
Kempis, Works, vol. III: The chronicle of the Canons Regular 
of Mount St. Agnes, ed. J. P. Arthur, pp. 213-217. 

164. Th. a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, ch. I, § 2. 

165. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 46. 

166. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, pp. 41, 245. 

167. H. Pomerio, De origine monasterii Viridis Vallis, p. 290. 

168. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 412. 

169. Memoryboek der oude Zusteren te Weesp, in: Archief 
voor Nederlandsche kerkgeschiedenis, vol. X, Leiden 18309, 
p. 188. 


NOTES TO CHAPTER II 


t. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelijk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
Pp. 548-549. 

2. The document is found in: J. de Hullu, De statuten van 
het Meester-Geertshuis te Deventer, pp. 63-76; a shorter one in: 
G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, pp. 
549-550. 

3. D. de Man, Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten, p. 
XXXVIII. — J. de Hullu, Statuten, p. 67. 

4. J. de Hullu, Statuten, p. 67. 

5. Ibid., pp. 67-68. 

6. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. XXIX, XXX, XXXVI, 
XLI. ‘ 

7. J. de Hullu, Statuten, pp. 66, 73, 67, 70. 

8. See p. 23. 

9. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. LVIII, LIX. 

10. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. IV, § 2. 

11. Th. 4 Kempis, Chron. Mont. Agn., ch. XI. He died in 
1400 at the age of 50; hence he was born in 1350. - 

12. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 18. 

13. Ibid. p. 18. — J. H. Gerretsen, Flor. Radewijns, p. 49. 

14. J. H. Gerretsen, Flor. Radewijns, p. 49. 

15. Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. VI, § 2. — D. A. Brinke- 
rink, Biographieén, 1902, pp. I, 23. 

16. J. H. Gerretsen, Flor. Rad., p. 50. 

17. Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. IV, § 1. 

18. Ibid., ch. XI, § 1. — Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 12. 

19. See p. 15. 

20. G. Bonet-Maury, Gérard de Groote, p. 57. 

21. J. G.R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, p. 45. 

22. J. H. Gerretsen, Flor. Radewijns, pp. 60-70. 

23. -E. Barnikol, Studien, p. 32. 

24. D. A. Brinkerink, De vita venerabilis Ioannis Brincker- 
‘inck, p. 324: “Quorum XII illi familiarius adherebant, ita ut 
unanimi consensu, spe vite liberioris, voto se castitatis astring- ° 
erent, licet unus ex illis postea iret post sathanem. — D. A. 
Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1902, p. 24: “Meyster Gerijt die hadde 


364 


NOTES 365 


ynt irste XII discipele, die onsen lieven Heren hoer reynicheid 
laveden ende alle vuerige manne woerden ende columpne der 
deuchden, behalve ene; die viel weder of en sterf quader doet’. 

25. P. Hiorn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 362. 

26. A few cases are mentioned in the sources. 

27. I do not see why we should have to reject the account 
by Busch. For nowhere is he so trustworthy as in his narrative 
relating to Groote’s activities as founder of the new brotherhood. 
When Groote preached at Zwolle, it was his custom to stop at 
the house of Busch’s grand-father (see: M. Schoengen, Jac. 
Voecht narratio, p. 6, note 6); Busch was one of Cele’s best 
friends, while Groote’s confessor, named Henry of Hoxter, 
told him a great many details about Groote’s last years: J. 
Busch, De ref. mon., p. 703: “Dominus Henricus Huxaria, qui 
fuerat eius confessor, hec mihi sepius enarravit et plura alia”. 

28. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 254: “Predilecte 
magister! Quid noceret, quod ego et clerici isti scriptores bone 
iam voluntatis ea, que septimanatim habemus expendere, in 
unum reponentes in communi pariter viveremus? .......... 
Communia? Isti de ordine mendicancium id nullatenus sustine- 
bunt, sed totis suis viribus resistere et omnino se opponere 
temptabunt”. 

29. J. Busch, Chron. Windeshemense, p. 254. — D. A. Brin- 
kerink, Biographieén, 1901, p. 420: “Aldus mynlic ende gesellic 
plach hij te wesen mit sinen discipelen, mer sij en leyden noch 
gheen gemeen leven toe samen. Want dat en dorste meyster 
Gerijt niet bestaen, om dat hij soe vele wederstaens hadde; mer 
hij stercte sine discipele daer seer toe, ende sechde: wert dat 
sijs bestaen dorsten, hij wolde hem gerne een guet hoeft wesen”. 

30. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 256. — W. J. 
Kihler, Johannes Brinckerinck, p. 19. — Frensweger handschrift, 
Pp. 22-27. 

31. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 255. 

32. P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, p. 362: “Vitam tamen 
communem discipuli eius post mortem illius de consilio et bene- 
placito ipsius inceperunt”. — D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 
-I901, p. 420: “Ende na sijnre doet soe waert die eerweerdige 
meystere her florens die overste, ende doe weren sij daer allen- 
telen wat toe gecomen”. — R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 13: 
“Dominus Florencius custodivit pecunias secum habitancium. 
Videns autem quod tam plene essent conversi ad Dominum et 


366 NOTES 


tam tractabiles et flexibiles, fudit pecunias eorum in unum et 
fecit eas esse Omnium, que fuerant per partes singulorum; et 
ita deinceps ceperunt vivere in communi’, There is one other 
account which ought to be of some interest to us. In Ms. no. 
75 G 58 of the Royal Library at the Hague we find a treatise 
by Gabriel Byel or Bael, rector of the Brethren of the Common 
Life at Butzbach near Mainz (see: G. Coeverincx, Analecta, 
part II, ed. G. van den Elsen and W. Hoevenaars, p. 128), 
called: Tractatus de communi vita clericorum. The rector tells 
his readers on fol. 11> of this treatise that Groote was unable 
to find good monasteries for his followers. For that reason he 
withheld many of them from entering a monastery. Finally he 
resolved to follow Augustine’s example by founding a society 
or congregation, instructing his followers to live the “common. 
life’. 

33. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, pp. 263-264. 

34. Th. a Kempis, Vita Ger. Magni, ch. XVI, §§ 2-3. 

35. Thomas a Kempis very plainly states that Groote urged 
his disciples to build a monastery and join the Augustinian 
Canons Regular (Vita Ger. Magni, ch. XV, § 3). Acquoy over- 
looked this fact; see: W. J. Kiithler, De prediking van Geert 
Groote, pp. 231-232. 

36. D. A. Brinkerink, De vita venerabilis Ioannis Brincker- 
inck, p. 326. 

37. D. A. Brinkerink, De vita ven. Ioannis BAnckeigee D. 
327: “In quottidianis igitur anxietatibus constituti magister 
Gerardus et sui, maturo et deliberato consilio concluserunt, se 
monasterium ordinis regularium S. Augustini velle construere, 
sub cuius alis et umbris ceteri sine approbata apostolica regula, 
sed in seculari habitu simplici aut clericali degentes protegeren- 
tur’. — P. Horn, Vita Gerardi Magni, pp. 362-363: “Habuit 
eciam in proposito edificandi monasterium clericorum ordinis 
canonicorum regularium, volens quosdam de ydoneis clericis 
sibi adherentibus ad religionis habitum promovere, ut aliis devo- 
tis essent in exemplum et contra senientem mundum in refugii 
castrum religione munitum”. 

38. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 7. — D. A. Brinkerink, 
Biographieén, 1902, p. 3. — Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. X, § 2. 

39. Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XIV, § 1.— D. A. Brin- 
kerink, Biogr., 1902, p. 9. 

40. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XVI, §§ 2-4. 


NOTES 367 


4t. Ibid. ch. XIV, § 3. 

42. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. I, § 1. 

43. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1902, p. 9. — Th. a 
Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XIII, § 1. 
44. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XIV, § 3; ch. XV, § 3; 

Cal AV ee 2. 
~ 45, ibid. ch. XV,°§ 3. 

46. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 22. — Th. a4 Kempis, 
Vita Flor., ch. XX, § 1. 

47. J. H. Gerretsen, Flor. Rad., pp. 125-126. 

48. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XI, § 2, § 1; ch. XXIV, § 3. 
— R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 21. 

49. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XXIV, § 3. 

SOnsat Did CH VIL coal, 

51. Ibid., ch. XVII, § 1, ch. XI, § 2. — D. A. Brinkerink, 
Biographieén, 1902, p. I9. 

52: Th. A Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XVIII, § 3. 

53. De magistro Everardo de Eza, in: Ms. no. 8849-8859, 
Royal Library, Brussels, fol. 803. 

54. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XVIII, § 3. 

55. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 21. 

56. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XI, § 2, § 3. 

57. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 21: “Aliqui civium oblo- 
quentes devotis in Daventria excusabant tamen Fratres Domus 
domini Florencii. Aliqui vero omnes condemnantes solum 
dominum Florencium collaudabant’. 

58. J. H. Gerretsen, Flor. Rad.,. pp. 132-133. 

59. Fl. Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 12: Item et vie 
nostre finis quidem est regnum Dei. Quid vero sit scopos debet 
diligenter inquiri......... Finis quidem nostre professionis ut 
diximus regnum celorum est; destinacio vero scilicet scopos 
puritas cordis sine qua ad illum finem impossible est quempiam 
pervenire”. 

60. Ibid., fol. 1. 

61. Fl. Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 24-38. 

62. Ibid., fol. 4>-54. 

63. Ibid., fol. 3>-4>. 

64. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus de spiritualibus exercitiis, 
p. 384. 

65. Ibid., p. 384: “Caritas autem vera non est nisi in corde 
puro a viciis, et ipsa in se omnem comprehendit virtutem”. 


368 NOTES 


66. Ibid., p. 384: “Porro quantum homo plus purgaverit cor 
suum a viciis et consupiscentiis inordinatis, tanto amplius im- 
pletur virtutibus seu caritate’. : 

67. Ibid., p. 385. 

68. Ibid., p. 386. 

69. Fl. Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 824-83». 

70. FI. Radewijns, Tract., p. 384. 

71. Ibid. p. 387: “Et est recte simile in proposito de in- 
strumento musico, cuius corde sunt indisposite, licet non 
destructe, quod non potest reddere bonam melodiam. Sic eciam 
vires et affectiones anime deordinate seu deformate sunt, licet 
non destructe”. 

72. Ibid. p. 387: “Et in hoc eciam consistit vera conversio 
et spiritualis, ut scilicet amor convertatur seu reformetur, ut 
nichil diligat nisi deum vel propter deum”. 

73. Ibid., pp. 392, 391, 397, 398. 

74. Fl. Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 184: “Ecce caritas 
_ excellentissima via est que ducit ad celestem patriam et sine 
qua illuc nemo pervenire poterit’’. 

75. -Ibid., fol. 18>, 208-238. 

76. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 413. 

77. Fi. Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 23-28». 

78. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, pp. 401-402. — Omnes inquit 
artes, fol. 26a-». 

79. Fl. Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 26%: “Pro spiritu- 
alibus exerciis non omnia equaliter corporalia conveniunt, sed 
illa que cum spiritualibus maiorem habent convenienciam et 
sollicitudinem de quibus inter cetera est sacram scripturam 
scribere”. 

80. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 389. — Omnes inquit artes, 
fol. 23>. 

81. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 389. — Omnes inquit artes, 
fol. 23>: “Tota sacra scriptura est propter virtutes; et si homo 
haberet virtutes et inconcusse servaret, non indigeret scriptura 
quantum ad se, ut dicunt Augustinus et Crysostomus, quia multi 
sine codicibus sancte vixerunt in solitudinibus”. 

82. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 389. — Omnes inquit artes, 
fol. 23>. 

83. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 303. 

84. Ibid., p. 395. 

85. Ibid., pp. 396-390. 


NOTES 369 


86. Fl, Radewijns, Omnes inquit artes, fol. 68-178, — Tracta- 
tulus, pp. 405-406, 409, 414. 

87. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 404. 

88. Fl. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 411. 

89. Ibid., p. 412. 

90. Ibid., p. 413. 

o1. Ibid., p. 415. 

92. Ibid., p. 417. 

93. Ibid., p. 421. 

04. Ibid. p. 423. 

95. About one half of the Omnes inquit fee is devoted to 
the life of Christ (fol. 28-624, and also fol. 624-774). 

06. See p. 46, note 32. 

97. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 13. 

08 W. J. Kihler, Johannes Brinckerinck, p. 13. 

99. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, pp. 7-8: “Ioannes de 
Huxaria fuit ordinatus presbiter, sed morte preventus non 
celebravit missam, sepultus est......... Erat autem idem 
Joannes de Huxaria tante perfectionis, quod ad tempus dubitatur 
an ipse vel dominus Florencius fieret rector Fratrum in 
Daventria: tandem convenerunt in dominum Florencium”. 

100. Found in: G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deven- 
ter, vol. I, pp. 616-620. 

101. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
p. 616. 

102. Much has already been written on this subject, but as 
has been the case with the foundation of the new brotherhood, 
we have hitherto been led astray by a spirit of negative criticism 
which distrusts all chronicle writers, even those men who lived 
themselves in the house at Deventer, as Thomas 4 Kempis did 
and Rudolf Dier de Muiden. Only the documents are to be 
trusted, these critics say, and then only a certain class of docu- 
ments, — not theofficial ones, for these deliberately created 
titles of non-existing offices (see E. Barnikol, Studien, p. 32). 
Thus the whole reading public, both in Holland, Germany, and 
elsewhere, have been left in the dark concerning the early 
history of the Brethren of the Common Life. And yet the 
sources tell a very plain and simple story, which is in no way 
contradicted by a single document. 

103. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
pp. 603-610. — Analecta Daventria, vol. I, p. 224, p. 16. 


370 NOTES 

104. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
p. 629. 

105. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, pp. 38-39. — G. Dumbar, 
Analecta Daventria, vol. I, p. 238. — Ms. no. 70 H 75, Royal 
Library, The Hague, fol. 13-148: “Nos Godfridus Toorn, 
Rodolphus de Muden et Otgerus Johannis presbyteri et custodes 
domus magistri Florencii in Daventria notum facimus........ 
empta est cum domibus in ipsa edificatis de pecuniis deputatis 
ad primum usum: ad hoc ut in ipsis habitent devoti clerici vel 
scolares”. 

106. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1902, p. 8: “Onder desen 
schoelres waert soe grote dissepline gehoelden, oftet reliose 
cloesterlude hadden geweest, ende dat overmides die goddien- 
stige insettinge here Florens ende sijnre devoeter bruders”. 
See p. 45. 

107. G. Dumbar, Analecta Daventria, vol. I, pp. 102-103. 

108. Th. a Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XV, § 2. — R. Dier de 
Muiden, Scriptum, p. 24. 

109. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 24. 

Loe ibid. < p24; 

Ti Tbid sp: e24; ; 

112. J, de Hullu, De Hlervorming in Overijssel, p. or. 

113. This was at any rate the impression received by Thomas 
a Kempis (see: Th. 4 Kempis, Vita J. Gronde, ch. I, § 3). 

114. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 14. 

115. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 65. — D. A. Benker 
Biographieén, 1902, p. “yi 

116. J. Badius Ascensius, Vita Thomae Malleoli, ch. IX. 
The translation given in our text is from: Th. 4 Kempis, Medi- 
tation on the incarnation of Christ, ed. D. V. Scully, pp. XXVII- 
XXVIII. 

117. Thomas a Kempis, Vita Arn. Scoonhoviae, ch. II. 

118, J. Lindeborn, Historia episcopatus Daventriensis, p. 98. 

119. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 25. 

120. W. J. Kihler, Joh. Brinckerinck, p. 21. 

121. M. Schoengen, Jacobus Traiecti narratio, p. 500. 

122. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, pp. 34, 40. 

123. Ibid.,° p. 42. 

124. Ibid., p. 41. 

125. See p. IIo. r 

126. R. Dier de Muiden, Seriptum, p. 4r. 


NOTES 371 


127. Th. a Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. XXXV, § 1. 
128. G. Dumbar, Analecta Daventria, vol. I, p. 99. 
129. Ibid., pp. 95-97. 

130. Ibid., p. 106: “Nescientes ad quid amplius optemus 
vivere, cum tOtiens vita nostra moriatur’’. 

131. G. Dumbar, Analecta Daventria, vol. I, pp. 111-113. 

132. See: G. H. J. W. J. Geesink, Gerard Zerbolt van Zutfen, 
prid3. 

133. Zerbolt died in 1398 at the age of thirty-one (see Th. a 
Kempis, Vita Ger. Sutph., § 8). 

134. Th. a Kempis, Vita Ger. Sutph., § 2. — G. J. H. W. J. 
Geesink, Ger. Zerb., p. 6. 

135. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1902, pp. 336-337. 

136. Th. a Kempis, Vita Ger. Sutph., § 4. 

137. Th. a Kempis, Vita Ger. Sutphan., §§ 5-6. 

138. See my article in the Ned. Arch. voor Kerkgesch., 1921, 
Pp. I0Q-114; p. 118, note 7. 

139. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 2 

140. Ibid., fol. 24->: “Si autem premisse persone vivunt et 
cohabitant simul non collegialiter vel conventualiter sive per 
modum et ritum seu assumpcionem nove religionis sed pocius 
per modum simplicis societatis et unionem karitatis; sic extra 
religionem in una domo et societate convivere et cohabitare est 
omnino licitum. Et hoc modo simul convivere et cohabitare 
est in ecclesia Dei valde consuetum, dictis et auctoritatibus sanc- 
torum et doctorum recommendatum et a sede apostolica special- 
iter licenciatum”. Then he gives a great many proofs and con- 
cludes: ‘“Quare multomagis catisa devocionis et pietatis in 
modum simplicis societatis sive collegii vel corporis constitucione 
convivere et cohabitare est omnino licitum et meritorum”, If 
it were prohibited, Zerbolt continues on folio 3%, to live the 
common life in private homes, the whole world would be in a 
state of condemnation. On fol. 3>-42 he shows that the common 
life has always been practised in the Christian Church, and 
approved by the pope. The common life is recommended in 
the Bible (Psalm 133, Job XXI, Genesis II), he finally remarks. 

Ibid., fol. 68. 

142. Ibid., fol. 74-8>. He plainly proves that to live in common 
sa the Brethren of the Common Life did, was quite distinct from 
monasticism, and he concludes by saying: “Unde patet quod 
sola professio faciat religiosum. Nec habitus sine professione 


372 NOTES 
facit aliquum religiosum...... Unde propter hoc quod habitum 
deferunt humilem non sunt dicendi facere aliquam religionem”. 

143. Ibid., fol. 8». 

144. Ibid., fol. 104-11. 

145. Ibid., fol. 108. 

146. Zerbolt refers to the mind or reason of man before the 
fall, of which he still possesses a small remnant; see also p. 80. 

147. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 10-114, 

148. Ibid., fol. 118: “Ymmo maxima pax et quies fieret et 
optima rerum disposicio si tanta esset vel posset esse caritas 
hominum quod possent excludere proprietatem rerum, juxta 
illud Senece, ‘De moribus’”. 

149. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 114. 

150. Ibid., fol. 128: “Homo enim naturaliter est animal sociale 
ut dicit philosophus [Aristotle], primo Politice. Nullus enim 
homo solus sibi sufficit ad ea que sibi sunt necessaria procuranda 
ad victum acquirendum, coquendum, ad materiam  vestitus 
faciendum et preparandum, etc.. Unde Stoyci dicere consuev- 
erunt quod homo esset hominum causa generatus, videlicet in 
adiutorium, sicut patet Genesis II® [verse 20]: ‘Ade autem non 
erat adiutorium simile’”’. 

151. Ibid., fol. 128. 

152. Ibid., fol. 122. 

153. Ibid., fol. 124, 12», 

154. Ibid., fol. 12>: “Hoc autem modo contingit quod homines 
communem vitam istis temporibus solum trahunt ad religiosos 
ac scripturas divinas de communi vita loquentes solum de 
religiosis capiendas arbritrantur. Quoniam hoc tempore insue- 
tum aut rarum est extra religionem vivere in communi, quod 
tamen fuit usitatissimum in fervore ecclesie primitive et post- 
modum longo tempore. Sed eadem ratione posset forsitan 
videri inhibitum multis religiosis quibus nostris temporibus 
quibus refrigescente caritate iniquitas omnia occupavit, est vel 
fieri incipit insolitum in communi vivere sine omnini proprietate. 
Similiter hodie multa sancti ewangelii consilia non sunt multum 
consueta, nec tamen ideo ea facientibus sunt minus meritoria, 
quomodo quis ea inter malos Dei consilia non sategerit adim- 
plere, secundum Gregorius, primo Moralium”. 

PSS Lbida tole rab: 

156. Ibid., fol. 12>-138. 

157. Ibid., fol 138. 


NOTES 373 


158. Ibid., fol. 134. Zerbolt does not seem to have been 
aware of the fact that the Pythagoreans were not disciples of 
Pythagoras. 

159. Ibid., fol. 133. 

160. Ibid., fol. 134. 

161. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 144, 

162. Ibid., fol. 14@154, 

163. Ibid., fol. 15>-17>, 

164. Ibid., fol. 17-18». 

165. See my article on the Super modo vivendi in the Ned. 
Arch. voor Kerkgesch., 1921, p. 107, p. 115. 

166. Ibid., pp. 115-116. 

167. F. Jostes, Die Schriften des Gerhard Zerbolt van Zut- 
phen, p. 7. 

168. Revius gave a few extracts from this treatise (J. Revius, 
Daventria illustrata, pp. 41-58). 

169. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 192; see W. Preger, 
Beitrage, p. 55. 

170. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 19-214, — W. 
Preger, Beitrage, pp. 55-57. 

171. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 20>. — W. Preger, 
Beitrage, p. 56. 

172. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 218, — W. Preger, 
Beitrage, p. 58. 

173. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 21>-2282. — W. 
Preger, Beitrage, p. 58. 

174. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 224->. — W. Preger, 
Beitrage, pp. 58-59. 

175. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 22>. — W. Preger, 
Beitrage, pp. 59-60. 

176. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 22-248, — W. 
Preger, Beitrage, pp. 60-61. 

177. G. Zerbolt;;Super modo vivendi, fol. 24>. 

178. Ibid., fol. 25. 

179. Ibid., fol. 258. 

180. Ibid., fol. 25>-26a. 

181. Ibid., fol. 268: “Ymmo sine hac obediencia non potest 
pax et concordia inter simu] habitantes conservari”. 

182. Ibid., fol. 278: “Primo cum quis confitetur in necessitate 
laico eciam peccata mortalia quod licitum est ut patet quarto 


374 NOTES . 


Sentenciarum, distinctio XVII, cap. 7. Sed in hoc theologi et 
juriste sunt ei contrarii’, 

183. Ibid., fol. 278. 

184. Ibid., fol. 278-. 

185. Ibid., fol. 27>. 

186. Ibid., fol. 27>-288, 

187. Ibid. fol. 28b: “Ex quo patet quod quantum ad hanc 
revelacionem peccatorum sive confessionem non sacramentalem 
non est necessarium requirere aliquem habentem auctoritatem 
clavium sed magis habentem discrecionem spirituum nec tam li- 
teratum quam expertum qui possit in omnibus temptacionibus 
et laqueis dyaboli hominem dirigere et premunire”. ; 

188. Ibid., fol. 28». 

189. Ibid., fol. 28-298: “Et ista confessio non sacramentalis 
quondam apud viros spirituales erat valde consueta et laudata 
licet nunc sit rara et multis incognita et magis est dolendum a 
plerisque ut illicita impugnatur”. 

190. See p. 46. 

191, See p. 60. 

192. Dier of Muiden. 

193. See p. IOI. 

194. G. Zerbolt, Super modo vivendi, fol. 294318. 

195. Ibid., fol. 32>. ; 

196. Ibid., fol. 334. 

07.0 Gh. eVIl) 

198. G. Zerbolt, De spiritualibus ascensionibus, ch. III. — De 
reformatione virium animae, ch. I. 

199. G. Zerbolt, De spir. ascens., ch. IV. 

200. G. Zerbolt, De ref. vir. an., ch. II-III. 

201. Ibid., ch. III: Cor autem purgare, nihil aliud est, quam 
cupiditates extinguere. Cupiditates et inordinatas concupiscen- 
tias extinguere, est vires animae reformare. 

202. G. Zerbolt, De spir. ascens., ch. IV: “Ita homo anima 
tua rationalis, quae est dignior omnibus temporalibus creaturis, 
impuritatem et immunditiam contrahit ex hoc, quod rebus 
temporalibus subijcitur per amorem”. 

20382 [Did uch eaVa=Vildas 

204. Ibid. ch. V. 

205. G. Zerbolt, De ref. vir. an., ch. IIT. 

206. G. Zerbolt, De spir. ascens, ch. XII. 

207. Ibid., ch. XIII. 


NOTES 375 


208. Ibid., ch. XVI. 

200: Ibid., ch:-X VI. 

210. Ibid., ch. XIX. 

211. Ibid. ch, XX. 

212. Ibid., ch. XXI. 

213. Ibid., ch. XXII-XXIV. 

214. Ibid., ch. XXVII. 

215. Ibid.: “Per humanitatem Christi ad spiritualem affectum 
assurgere, et iam ipsum Deum per speculum in aenigmate 
mentalibus oculis intueri, et sic ex humanitate ad notitiam et 
amorem divinitatis pervenire”. 

216. F. Radewijns, Multes inquit artes, fol. 28>-618: Extract 
from the gospel of St. John, chapter I (fol. 28-294), from Bona- 
ventura’s works (fol. 294), from the prophecies (fol. 29-304), 
the annunciation (fol. 31>), the visit of Mary to Elisabeth (fol. 
32>), the birth of Jesus (fol. 33>-34>), the visit of the wise men 
(fol. 364->), the presentation at Jerusalem (fol. 374»), the flight 
to Egypt (fol. 383»), the baptism (fol. 394), the temptation in the 
desert (fol. 39>), the transfiguration (fol. 42-43%), the parable of 
the lost sheep (fol. 434), the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm- 
Sunday (fol..44>), the Last Supper (fol. 49-50), Gethsemanéh 
(fol. 514-528), the capture of Christ (fol. 52>), Christ brought 
before Caiaphas (fol. 532), Peter denies the Lord (fol. 53%), 
Pilate (fol. 549-552), on the way to Golgotha (fol. 55-564), Gol- 
gotha (fol. 56-57>), the resurrection (fol. 592), Christ appears to 
Mary and the disciples (fol. 59-604), and ascends (fol. 60>). 

217. G. Zerbolt, De spir. ascens., ch. XXVIII-XL: The 
prophesies (ch. XXVIII), the annunciation (ch. XXIX), the 
life of Christ, and last supper (ch. XXX-XXX1I), the passion of 
Christ (ch. XXXII-X XXVIII), the resurrection(ch. XXXIX), 
the ascension (ch. XL); see also: G. Zerbolt, De ref. vir. animae, 
ch. XXVI-X XXIII. 

218. G. Zerbolt, De spir. ascens., ch. XI, ch. XLVIII. 

219. See p. 54."° 

220. In ch. LXVII of the De spiritualibus ascensionibus and 
ch. XX XIX of the De reformatione virium animae the blessings 
of manual labor are extolled, and ch. LX VIII of the De spiri- 
tualibus ascensionibus deals with the relations with one’s 
superiors, equals, and inferiors. 

221. See p. 65. 

222. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 48. 


; 


376 NOTES 


223. See pp. 46-49; and cf. W. J. Kithler, Johannes Brinck- 
erinck,. p21. 

224. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 13: “Ista fuit causa 
movens ad instituendum religiosos, quia simplici communi vita 
timebant sustinere persecutiones ab emulis, ut sic, aliquibus 
existentibus religiosis, multi fratres devoti non professi religione 
tuerentur seu laterent sub professis religionem”. 

225. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 267; cf. J. G. R. 
Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, pp. 64-65. The 


bishop, named Floris van Wevelinkhoven, signed his letter of 


permission on July 30, 1386; see J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster 
te Windesheim, vol. III, pp. 262-264. 

226. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, pp. 274-275. The 
names of first six men were: Henry Klingebijl, Henry van 
Wilsem, Berthold ten, Hove, William Keynkamp, John a Kempis, 
brother of Thomas a Kempis, and Henry de Wilde. The man 
who was sent ahead was Henry of Hoxter. Cf. J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, p. 66. 

227. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, 
p. 66. — J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 16. 

228. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, 
p. 68, note 2. 

229. Ibid., p. 66. 

2a Sy G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster -te Windesheim, vol. ly 
pp. 67-68. 

231. Privilegia et statuta capituli generali Windesemensis, in: 
Ms. no. 78 D 55, Royal Library, the Hague, pp. 105, 205. 

232. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, pp. 280-281. 

233. See: J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, 
VOL. 17) ps 772: 

234. J. Busch, Chronicon Windeshemense, p. 278. 

235. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 342: “In illa tempora [1392] 
tanta caritas erat inter illos, ut bona temporalia et spiritualis 
congregacionis Daventriensis monasterii in Windeshem et 
Fontis Beatae Mariae pene erant illis communia”. 

236. Ibid., pp. 342-343. 

237. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, 
Pp. 230. 

238. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 28: “Iste est homo, quem 
qttesivi, cum quo multa bona in terra operabor”. 

239. Ibid., p. 28. 


NOTES 377 


240. Ibid., p. 59. For further particulars regarding this 
remarkable man, see J. Busch, Chron. Wind., pp. 35-37, 54-55, 
226-244; as for the authorship of the course of religious exercises 
which is ascribed to him by Busch, see: J. G. R. Acquoy, Het 
klooster te Windesheim, vol. I, p. 161. 

241. J. Busch, Chron, Wind., p. 26. 

242. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 94. 

243. Ibid., pp. 95-97; see also: J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster 
te Windesheim, vol. I, pp. 244-248. 

244. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 62. 

245. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 99. 

246. Ibid., pp. r1or-r1o02. 

247. Ibid., pp. 105-107. 

248. Ibid., pp. 189-191. 

249. Ibid., pp. 199-203. 

250. Th. a Kempis, Vita Ioannis Gronde, ch. II, §§ 1-2. 
(251. See p. 47. Cf. W. J. Kiuhler, Johannes Brinckerinck, 
PP. 134-135. 

252. Th. 4a Kempis, Vita Ioannis Gronde, ch. II, § 3. 

253. He died May 7, 1392, and was buried in Groote’s grave; 
see: Th. 4 Kempis, Vita Ioannis Gronde, ch. II, § 5. 

254. See: W. J. Kuhler, Joh. Brinck., pp. 15-18. 

255. W. J. Kiuhler, Joh. Brinckerink, p. 11. Here he lived 
eight years (1384-1392). He helped to build the new brethren- 
house in 1391, for he was carpenter: D. A. Brinckerinck, Bio- 
graphieén, 1902, p. 25. His character has been sfrikingly por- 
trayed in the following passage from the pen of a modern Dutch 
historian: “Met rijke gaven toegerust, en onvermoeid deze te 
werk stellend tot heil van anderen; praktisch van aanleg, met 
een scherpen blik op menschen en toestanden; meester van het 
woord en indrukwekkend door zijn krachtige persoonlijkheid; 
streng zonder hardheid en in zijn ernst niet geheel zonder 
humor; godvruchtig bovenal, tegelijk van diepen ootmoed en 
kinderlijk vertrouwen vervuld — was hij boven velen de man 
om-den vromen zin en den redelijken ernst te leiden en te 
versterken” (W. J. Kiihler, John. Brinck., p. 7). 

256. W. J. Kithler, Joh. Brinck., p. 34. 

257. Ibid., pp. 34-36. 

258. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1902, p. 30, 

250. W. J. Kihler, Joh. Brinck., p. 38. 


378 NOTES 


260. See: D. de Man, Hier beginnen sommige stichtige pun- 
ten, pp. LV-LX, 6, 11, 12, 225, 240, etc. 

261. W. J. Kihler, Joh. Brinck., p. 37. 

262. D. A. Brinkerink, Biographieén, 1902, p. 26: ”Onder die 
heilige susteren toe Meyster-Gerijtshuys was alsoe groten vuer 
des Heiligen Geestes ontsteken, dat al dat lant hieromtrijnt 
daer warm van waert, ende dat overmides der leer ende 
anwisinge hoers vaders here Iohan Brynckerinck”’. 

263. W. J. Kiihler, Joh. Brinck., pp. 38-39. 

264. W. J. Kihler, Joh. Brinck.,, p. 51. 

265. Ibid., pp. 53-56. 

266. Ibid., pp. 57-58. 

267. On the 21st of January, 1408, the dedication took place, 
and in 1412 it joined the general chapter of Windesheim (W. . 
J. Kiuhler, Joh. Brinck., p. 67, p. 72). 

268. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, pp. 46, 47. — 
Jacobus Traiecti narratio, pp. 6, 17, 27. 

269. M. Schoengen, Jacobus Traiecti narratio, p. 14. 

270. Ibid., p. 6. 

271. Ibid., pp. 7-8; p. 8, note 3. 

272. Ibid., p. 9. 

273. Ibid., p. 9, note 2; p. 280. 

274. Ibid. p. 9. For a biography on John Ummen, see: W. 
J. Kihler, Joh. Brinck., p. 34. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Traiecti 
narratio, p. 7, note 2. — D. de Man, Stichtige punten, p. 196. 

275. M. Schoengen, Jac. Traiecti Pesan: PP. 22-23, 216-217. 

276i Ubid),” pp." 25, ‘2To: 

277. Ibid., pp. 28, 219, 293-204. The observation made here 
by Schoengen on p. 28, note 5 is not correct, for the document 
he refers to was not dated September 17, but August 9 (see 
Pp. 293-204 of the same work, where the document itself is 
found). 

278. M. Schoengen, Jacobus Traiecti narratio, pp. 219-220, 
and 28. 

279. Ibid., p. 50, note 3. 

280. See p. 37. 

281. Ten letters, addressed by Groote to Cele, are still in 
existence. They were edited by W. Preger. 

282. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 200. 

283. M. Schoengen, Die Schule yon Zwolle, p. 83. 


NOTES 379 


284. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 209. — M. Schoengen, Die 
Schule von Zwolle, p. 38. 

285. See p. 12. 

286. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 97. 

287. W. Preger, Beitrage, p. 14. : 

288. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 213: “Ut autem exemplar 
et formam bone vite et sancte conversacionis seipsum preberet 
discipulis, incepit a seipso Christum in hoc imitatus non docens 
sermone, que prius opere non fecisset’. 

289. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 214. 

290. Ibid., p. 214. 

291. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 217. 

292. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 70. 

293. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 220: “Et quia multos sacre 
pagine libros sibi comparaverat dicens Dei testamentum in libris 
sanctis consistere et sanctam matrem nostram ecclesiam fidem 
catholicam spem futuri seculi celestis nostre patrie hucusque 
per libros in esse conservatas et sine ipsis diu periclitatas”’. 

294. W. Preger, Beitrage, p. 14. 

295. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 87. 

296. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 206. 

291. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 206. 

298. Cele was not only a great friend and admirer of the 
brethren, but he is to be regarded as one of the members of 
the local institution, although he did not live in their house. 
The following passage by John Busch, one of his teachers, is 


significant: “In habitu  exteriori moribus et conversacione 
magistro Gerardo Magno domino Florencio et patribus con- 
gregacionum per omnia se fecit similem........ Qui et suos 


discipulos similiter incedere verbo docuit et exemplo” (J. Busch, 
Chron. Wind., p. 213). Furthermore, he was a sort of supervisor 
of the brethren at Zwolle, or guardian, as appears from certain 
documents: M. Schoengen, Jacobus Traiecti narratio, p. 204: 
“Hier waren over. ende an, doe dit gheschiede, meyster Johan 
Cele, scoelmeyster to Zwolle, ende Albertus van Wynberghen”. 
— J. H. Hofman, De broeders van ’t gemeene leven, in: Arch. 
voor de gesch. van het aartsbisdom Utrecht, vol. II (1875), 
Pp. 243-244. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 300. 

299. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 206. / 

300. See: M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 107. 

301. Ibidem, As for the two other innovations, mentioned 


380 NOTES 


by Schoengen, Cele’s modern biographer (Dr. Schoengen is 
archivist at Zwolle), namely the special emphasis on religious 
instruction, particularly exegesis, and the improved course of 
instruction mapped out by Cele for future clergymen, I have 
made some mention of these in the text above. See also: M. 
Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 95. 

302. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 208. 

303. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwollé, pp. 75-76. — J. 
Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 207. 

304. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 207: “Et tune eciam notabilia 
quedam dicta sanctorum in futurum clericis profutura per totam 
scolam pronunciavit singulis ad sua rapiaria cuncta scribentibus. 
Unde epistolas et evangelia in festis per annum occurencia 
omnes habere voluit et rapiarium theologicale, quo nucleum 
scripture sacre brevibus in verbis colligerent, et ita successive 
Dei noticiam timorem et sapienciam novis testis memorie 
facilius commendarent”’. 

305. J. Busch, Chron. Widn., p. 206, p. 217. 

306. Ibid. p. 220. — J. H. Hofman, De boekerij van St. 
Michiel te Zwolle, pp. 387-389. 


NOTES TO CHAPTER III 


I. See p. So. 

2. Ch. -V. 

3. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p.60: “Perseveretis in statu 
- nostro. Licet enim status Monachorum secundum ecclesiam est 
perfectior; tamen si quis in humili statu perfecte vixerit premium 
perfecti hominis recipiet”. 

4.,-Lbid,» D=-55, > DP. <53- 

5: See: p.. Gr. 

6. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 54. 

7, See p. Iii. 

8. See p. 110. 

9. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 52. 

10. bid. p. 50, p: 261: 

11. G. Dumbar, Analecta Daventria, vol. I, p. 117: “In libris 
placebat illi Fratrum studiositas, sed valde trahebat Fratres ad 
libros magis devotos et morales........ Felicis (inquit) memorie 
Frater Iohannes Vos, prior in Wyndesem, solebat Fratres suos 
refrenare a studio librorum sancti Thome et ceterorum similium 
modernorum scholastice de obedientia et materiis similibus 
tractantium, volens ut permanerent in simplicitate sua”. 

Te LDiG.e De LIS, 

Pas ibid. ps 114: 

14. See my article in: Ned. Arch. voor Kerkgesch., 1921, 
Dee i25, elOte 1. 

15. G. Dumbar, Anal. Dav., vol. I, p. 114. 

16. See Ch. VII. 

17. G. Dumbar, Anal. Dav., vol. I, p. 173: “Ipse nempe 
Legatus commendavit statum, privilegia pro munimento obtulit, 
et Canonicatum cum privilegiis Fratribus dare voluit, sed 
dominus Egbertus simplicitatis amator acceptare rennuit, ne a 
primitivorum Patrum et Fratrum praeposito discederet, quorum 
vox esse consuevit: ‘Quia in humilitate nostra memor fuit nostri, 
et redemit nos ab inimicis nostris’” 

18. Ibid., pp. 173-175. 

19. At least this is the impression I have from the many 
times I heard that remark when a school boy there. 


381 


382 NOTES 


20. G. Dumbar, Analecta Daventria, vol. I, p. 177. 

Zi Did. Den 102. 

22. A list of these rectors is found in: G. Dumbar, Het 
kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, p. 620. 

23. G. Dumbar, Anal. Dav., vol. I, p. 238. In 1484 the 
brethren secured the “Antiqua Domus” in exchange for another. 
See: G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
pp. 611-612. 

24. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
pp. 610-614, pp. 631-633. — Anal. Dav., vol. I, pp. 40-41, p. 227. 

25. G. Dumbar, Anal. Dav., vol. I, p. 167, p. 228. — Het 
kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, p. 610. 

26. G. Dumbar, Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 
pp. 631, 634, 636. — J. de Hullu, De Hervorming in Overijssel, 
Pp. 76, Pp. 93. 

27. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., pp. 49-51. 

28. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 42. 

29. See: M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 233, n. I, p. 64. 

30. M. Schoengen, Jac Voecht narr., pp. 64, 60, 70, 72, 76, 78. 

31. Ibid., p. 62, p. 58. 

32. D. A. Brinkerink, Van den doechden der vuriger susteren, 
PP. 314-315. 

33. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., pp. 108-112, 428. 

34. Ibid., p. 127: “Postea cum esset vir late caritatis et sicut 
Apostolus dicit, quantum in ipso fuit, cum omnibus amicitiam 
et pacem habere volens et providere bona, non solum coram 
Deo, sed et coram omnibus hominibus, Jam rector factus, 
invitavit scabinos ad prandium, semel puto omnes, sepius aliquos, 
quatinus essent amici et fautores nostri et domus nostre. Sed 
et omnes vicarios similiter invitavit ad prandium. Sed ut experie- 
batur et experti, sumus omnes, nichil taliter profecimus, quia 
scabini exinde nobis magis favorabiles et fideliores fuerunt, et 
vicarii a nobis corrigi noluerunt”. 

- 35. Ibid. pp. CCXIII-CCXIV. 

36. See p. or. 

. 37. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 639. 

38. Ibid., p. 638. — M. Van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, pp. 32-34. 

39. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 125. 

40. Ibid., p. 640. 

41. Ibid., pp. 279-404. 

42. G. Dumbar,; Het kerkelyk en wereltlyk Deventer, vol. I, 


NOTES 383 


p. 626. — W. F. N. van Rootselaar, Amersfoort (777-1580), 
vol. I, p. 449. — Amersfoort, Geschiedkundige bijzonderheden, 
vol. II, pp. 7-8. 

43. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, pp. 54-55. — G. H. M. 
Delprat, Verhandeling over de broederschap van G. Groote, 
p. 120. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 18, n. 5, where a 
bibliography for the history of this house is given. 

44. G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling over de broederschap 
van G. Groote, pp. 119-120, 

45. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., pp. 482 and 32; on 
p. 32, n. 5, is a bibliography. 

46. Ibid., p. 484, pp. 30-31; p. 30, n. 1 has a fairly good 
bibliography. 

47. Ibid., pp. 78-79; p. 78, n. 3 has a bibliography. 

48. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 84, n. 3. 

49. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., pp. 84-85, p. 84, n. 8. — 
R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 76. — Chronicle of the brethren- 
house at Doesburg, p. 6. ; 

50. H. O. Feith, Het klerkenhuis en het fraterhuis te Gronin- 
gen, pp. 10-12. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 1o1, — 
M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, p. 30, p. 30, n. 5. — E. H. 
Roelfsema, De fraters en het fraterhuis te Groningen, pp. 30-31. 

51. ‘M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 485, p. 90, p. 99, n. 5. 

52. H. Gysbertszoon, Kronyk van het fraterhuis te Gouda, 
pp. 10-13, 14, 16. The house was not recognized, however, till 
1456: H. Gysbertszoon, Kronyk, p. 7, p. 22, p. 45. 

53. J. J. Dodt van Flensburg, De stichtingsoorkonden van 
het Utrechtsche fraterhuis, pp. 90-92. — G. H. M. Delprat, 
Verhandeling over de broederschap van G. Groote, p. I5I. — 
S. Muller, Catalogussen, Stads-archief, part I, p. 123. 

54. H: D. J. van Schevichaven, Oud Nijmegens kerken, 
kloosters, gasthuizen, stichtingen en openbare gebouwen, p. I00. 
— G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling, p. 161. 

35. R. Doebner, Annalen und Akten der Briider des gemein- 
samen Lebens im Ljiichtenhofe zu Hildesheim, pp. 95, 98-100, 
103, 105, III, 115-116, 271. 

56. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 54. — K. Loeffler, Neues 
iiber Heinrich von Ahaus, p. 234. — L. Schmitz-Kallenberg, 
Monasticon Westfaliae, p. 56. 

57. K. Loeffler, Heinrich von Ahaus, 1909, p. 778. — Neues 
tuber Heinrich von Ahaus, p. 238. — Gedachtnisbuch K6lner 


384 NOTES 


Briderhaus, p. 5. — Das Fraterhaus Weidenbach zu Koln, pp. 
104-105. 

58. K. Loeffler, Heinrich von Ahaus, p. 782. — E. Barnikol, 
Studien zur Geschichte der Briider vom gemeinsamen Leben, 
Pp. 47. ‘ 

59. E. Barnikol, Studien: p. 63. 

60. Ms. No. VII, 3305, Staatsarchiv, Minster, pp. 3-5, Sel rete 
— Ms. No. VII, 3307, Staatsarchiv, Minster, p. 130. — L. 
Schmitz-Kallenberg, Monasticon Westfaliae, p. 34. — E. Bar- 
nikol, Studien, p. 66. 

61. E. Barnikol, Studien, p. 71. — A. Wolters, Reformations- 
geschichte der Stadt Wesel, p. 13. — K. Loeffler, Heinrich von 
Ahaus, p. 780. — Neues tiber Heinrich von Ahaus, p. 239. 

62. R. Doebner, Annalen, pp. 3 and 259. — J. Busch, De re- 
formatione mon., p. 545. — E. Barnikol, Studien, p. 98. 

63. K. Loeffler, Das Fraterhaus Weidenbach, p. III. 

64. G. C. F. Lisch, Geschichte der Buchdruckerei in Mecklen- 
burg. — R. Doebner, Annalen, pp. 263, 264, 266, 281, 286, 307, 315. 
— A. Hulshof, Verslag van een onderzoek te Rostock, pp. 38-41. 

65. R. Doebner, Annalen, pp. 192-193, 288, 292, 314, 317. — 
O. Scheel, Martin Luther, vol. I, pp. 70-97. — E. Barnikol, 
Luther in Magdeburg und die dortige Briiderschule, pp. 12-13. 

66. R. Doebner, Annalen, pp. 267, 279-282. 

67. Ibid., pp. 25, 166-171, 184, 188-190, 266, 317. 

68. G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling, p. 183. 

69. O. Meyer, Die Briider vom gemeinsamen Leben in Wiir- 
temberg. 

70. Thus we read in the Chronicle of the brethren-house at 
Doesburg on p. 104: “Sciendum est enim quod ex domo fratrum 
in Noviomago novella domus fratrum inchoata fuerat in 
Kempone” [Kempen]. 

71. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., pp. 134-135. 

72. G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling, p. 175. 

73. J. Lindeborn, Historia sive notitia episcopatus Daven- 

triensis, p. 115. 
_ 74. Letter by Pope Eugene IV, in: Ms. no. 16515, Royal 
Library, Brussels, fol. 2», — G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling, 
p. 178. 

75. G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling, p. 180. 

76. Ibid., p. 180. 


il 


NOTES 385 


77. M. Godet, La congr. de Montaigu, p. 114. — G. H. M. 
Delprat, Verhandeling, p 181. 

78. Vita Joh. Hatten, in: An. Daventria, vol. I, p. 182. 

79. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. III, 
p. 1o1. — G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling,’p 170. 

80. G. H. M. Delprat, Verhandeling, p. 181. 

81. The “House of Master Gerard’; see p. 43. 

82. The “Lammenhuis”, founded in 1390: H. F. Heussen and 
H. van Rijn, Oudheden en gestichten van het bisdom Deventer, 
vol. I, p. 305. 

83. The “Buyskenshuis’, founded in 1405: H. F. Heussen en 
H. van Rijn, Oudh. en gest. van Dev., vol. I, p. 300. 

84. The “Kerstkenhuis”; for a bibliography on this house 
see: D. de Man, Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten, p. 58, 
note d. 

85. The “Brandeshuis”; for a bibliography on this house see: 
D. de Man, Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten, p. 87, 
note a. I: 

86. See: M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. XV. 

87. H. F. Heussen en H. van Rijn, Oudheden en gestichten 
van Deventer, vol. II, pp. 196, 197, 480, 24, 517, 427, 574. — Oud- 
heden van Utrecht, vol. II, pp. 443, 6290. — W. Moll, Kerkge- 
schiedenis van Nederland, vol. II, part 2, p. 176. — M. Schoen- 
gen, Het Weduwenhuis te Doesburg, pp. 388-390. — Jac. Voecht 
narr., pp. XV, 60, 48, 77, 81, 82 n. 2, 89, 120, 145, 197, 208. — 
S. Muller, De moderne devotie te Utrecht, pp. 25-30. — R. Doeb- 
ner, Annalen und Akten, pp. 263 (Ahlen), 258-260 (Borken), 
264 (Biiderich), 259 (Calcar), 260 (Coesfeld), 256-258 (Dinsla- 
ken), 76-78 (Eldagsen), 259 (Essen), 259 (Volkmarsen), 261 
(Groll), 261 (Herford), 256 (Schiittorf), 259 (Wesel), etc. — L. 
Schulze, Briider des gemeinsamen Lebens, (1897), p. 487; (1914), 
p. 262. 

88. D. de. Man,. Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten, 
pp. LIII, 35, 45, 90. 

89. Ibid., p. 56. 

90. Ibid., p. 56. 

o1. Ibid. p. 85. 

92. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. XV. 

@3. See p. go. 

94. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. III, 
p. 75. — W. F.N. Rootselaar, Amersfoort (777-1580), vol. I, p. 


386 NOTES 


451. — Amersfoort, Geschiedkundige bijzonderheden, vol. II, 
p. 9. 

os. W. F. N. van Rootselaar, Amersfoort (777-1580), vol. I, 
p. 461. 

96. Ibid. p. 477. 

97. Ibid., p. 486. 

98. H. F. van Heussen en H. van Rijn, Oudheden en gestich- 
ten van het bisdom Deventer, vol. I, p. 210. 

99. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 18, note 5. 

100. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. IIT, 
p. 127. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narratio, p. 37. — Privile- 
gia, capituli Windesemensis, fol. 3204-321». 

ror. H. Gysbertszoon van Arnhem, Kronyk van het frater- 
huis te Gouda, ed. A. H. L. Hensen, p. 27: “Eo quod pro pauper- 
tate et parvitate loci ipsis patribus animus non erat ad fundan- 
dam congregacionem clericorum”. 

102. See note 52. 

103. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narratio, pp. 134-138, pp. 
493-496. 

104. W. Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis van Nederland, vol. II, part 
3, p. 96. . 

105. Constitution of the house at Zwolle, in: M. Schoengen, 
Jac. Voecht narr. pp. 240-241. — Constitution of the house at 
Deventer, in: Ms. no. 73 G 22, Royal library, the Hague, fol. 
1b-2b, 

106. Constitution of the house at Zwolle, pp. 241-242. — Con- 
stitution of the house at Deventer, fol. 2>-34. The selection and 
arrangement of the subject matter was the work of Florentius 
Radewijns, for not only does the prologue of the constitution in 
use at Deventer explicitly state that the written rules of this 
constitution were the same as those practised in the house at 
Deventer before, but in the extracts we have of Radewijns’ 
rules, the same subjects are arranged exactly in the same way as 
found in the written constitution. See: D. J. M. Wiistenhoff, 
Florentii parvum et simplex exercitium, p. 96. It was not 
Theodore Herxen, rector of the house at Zwolle, therefore, 
who composed the chapter on meditation, as Schoengen believes 
(M: Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr. p. CXL), but Florentius 
Radewijns. 


107. Constitution of the house at Zwolle, pp. 242-243. — 


NOTES 387 


Constitution of the house at Deventer, fol 34-45. — Hildesheim 
constitution, p. 241. 

108. Zwolle const., p. 244: “Tunc enim per devotam medita- 
tionem, et compassionem Dominice passionis, et per pias 
affectiones, quasi ad spiritualem communionem nos debemus 
preparare”’. 

109. Zwolle const., pp. 244-245. — Deventer const., fol. 6>-7>. 
— Cf. Hildesheim const., p. 241. 


110. Zwolle const., p. 245. — Deventer const., fol. 7>-8>. — 
Cf. Hildesheim const., pp. 239-240. 

111. Zwolle const., p. 246. — Deventer const., fol. 8°. — Cf. 
Hildesheim const., p. 241. ; 

112. Zwolle const., pp. 246-247. — Dev. const., fol. 10>, 


Theodore Herxen composed a series of Dutch sermons, filling 
two bulky volumes (see p. 106), made especially for the citizens 
of Zwolle. Of the brethren at Gouda we read that they fre- 
quently addressed the people in the vernacular. One of the 
brethren would read a passage from the Scriptures, while an- 
other would explain and comment upon this passage: H. Gys- 
bertsz. van Arnhem, Kronyk van het fraterhuis te Gouda, p. 44. 


113. Zwolle const., pp. 247-248. — Dev. const., fol. 1o>-114. 
114. Zwolle const., p. 248. — Dev. const., fol. 118-12». 

115. Zwolle const., pp. 248-250. — Dev. const., fol. 12>-14>, 
116. Zwolle const., pp. 250-252. Dev. const., fol. 14>-16. 
117. Zwolle const., pp.-252-255. Dev. const., fol. 19#-20?. 
118. Zwolle const., pp. 255-257. Dev. const., fol. 16>-18». 
119. Zwolle const., pp. 257-258. Dev. const., fol. 20-21. 
120. Zwolle const., pp. 258-259. Dev. const., fol. 25>-263. 
121. R. Doebner, Annalen und Akten, pp. 225-226, 227-231, 


233-235. — G. Boerner, Die Annalen und Akten, pp. 76-86; and 
p. 87: “Das Generalkapitel oder die Union von Miinster ist 1499 
zustande gekommen, und deshalb sind auch die Unionsstatuten 
in diesem Jahre errichtet’’. 
' 122. Zwolle constitution, pp. 259-260. — Deventer constitu- 
tion, fol. 264-288. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., pp. LVI- 
LVIII. — M. A. G. Vorstman, Stukken betreffende de Broeders 
des Gemeenen Levens, pp. 79, 81, I15, 133. 

123. R. Doebner, Annalen und Akten, pp. 214-215. 

124. Zwolle const., pp. 260-261. — Dev. const., fol. 284-298, — 
Hildesheim const., pp. 243-245. 

125. Zwolle const., pp. 262-263. — Dev. const., fol. 304-34>. — 


388 NOTES 


See also: M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. CLXX XVII; for 
the German houses, see: R. Doebner, Annalen und Akten, pp. 
218-222. 

126. Zwolle const., pp. 263-264. — Dev. const., fol. 35-36%. — 
Hildesheim const., pp. 222-223. 

127. Zwolle const., pp. 264-265. — Dev. const., fol. 368->. — 
Hildesheim const., pp. 236-238. 

128. Zwolle const., pp. 265-266, p. 268. — Dev. const., fol. 
37-388, 402->, — Hildesheim const., pp. 235-236. 

129. Zwolle const., p. 265. — Dev. const., fol. 36>-37>, In the 
rules laid down by the “Colloquium” of Minster, nothing is 
said about this subject, for in the year 1499 and after, more 
attention was paid to mechanical rules than the acquisition of - 
virtues. This may at least be said of the constitutions drawn up 
by the Brethren of the Common Life in Germany. 

130. Zwolle const., pp. 266-268. — Dev. const., fol. 384-408 — 
Cf. Hildesheim const., pp. 238-239. 

131. The Sisters of the Common Life also had constitutions. 
The first one, drawn up by Groote in 1379, was followed in due 
time by more elaborate ones, among which the one used at 
Minster has recently been made more accessible in printed form 
(see: W. E. Schwarz, Studien zur Geschichte des Klosters 
Marienthal, pp. 112-126). : 

132. W. J. Kihler, Levensbeschrijvingen van devote zusters 
te Deventer, pp. 27, 53-54. — D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. 
L, 7, 12, 64, 225, 240. — Rector Peter Dieppurch’s discourses, in: 
R. Doebner, Annalen und Akten, pp. 144, 145. 

133. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. 19, 88, 123, 63, 114, 133, 
154, 186, p. 6, note b, p. 109, note c, p. 112, note c; pp. XLVIII, 
52, 122, 160, 58, 151, 189. — Rector R. Dieppurch’s discourses, 
in: R. Doebner, Annalen und Akten, p. 149. 

134. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, p. 176. 

135. That the Sisters of the Common Life were very fond 
of reading biographies is indicated in: D. de Man, Stichtige 
punten, p. LXXI. 

136. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. LXXIV, XLIX, 27, 
90, 193, 199, 206, 233, 252-253. 

137. M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 277. 

138. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. 16-17. 

139. See p. 105. 





NOTES | 389 


140. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 65. — D. de Man, 
Stichtige punten, p. LV, p. 120. 

141. J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. II, 
pp. 301-302. 

142. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, p. LV, p. 37, note b, p. 51, 
note a. 

143. Th. a Kempis, Vita Luberti, § 36. — R. Dier, Scriptum, 
p. 64. — W. J. Kiihler, Joh. Brinckerinck, pp. 34 and 36. — 
D. de Man, Stichtige punten, pp. LI-LII, p. LIV. — J. G. R. 
Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim, vol. II, p. 290, note 7. 

144. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, p. 49, note d. — W./J. 
Kuhler, Joh. Brinckerinck, p. 34. — R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, 
p. 64. — M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 223. 

145. R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 28. — W. J. Kuler, 
Joh. Brinckerinck, p. 36. — D. de Man, Stichtige punten, p. 34, 
note b, p. LIV. — D. A. Brinkerink, De vita Joh. Brinckerinck, 
P. 344. 

146. D. de Man, Stichtige punten, p. L. 

147. See: Deventer constitution, fol. 16>-18>. — Zwolle const., 
pp. 255-257. — Hildesheim constitution, pp. 232. 

148. Hildesheim constitution, pp. 234-235: “Sollicitus sit, ut 
debito tempore diligenter et. munde coquenda praeparet et, ne 
quid crudum vel intemperatum fratribus offeratur, solerter 
caveat, hospitario etiam et infirmario benignum se exhibeat”. 

149. R. Dier, Scriptum, p. 7o. 

150. See p. 53. 

151. See pp. 117-118. 

152. See pp. 124-134. 

153. ‘To the negative criticism of Acquoy and Hirsche many 
theories have been added from time to time. Hence it has 
become very difficult to read modern Dutch, German, French, 
and English writers without getting one’s views bemuddled by 
the opinions of authorities which were copied verbally by their 
followers, even in Holland. 

154. According to a legend invented about a century ago it 
was Florentius Radewijns, the first rector of the Brethren of 
the Common Life at Deventer, who taught in the school of St. 
Lebwin’s, wherefore his followers also were induced to imitate 
his example. It now is a well-known fact in Holland that 
Florentius Radewijns never taught school at all, nor did any 
one of the brethren at Deventer act as rectors of the cathedral 


390 NOTES 


school or as assistants for a great many years after his death. 
And yet the legend is still believed in by many students in 
England and France, wherefore attention should be called to 
this side of the truth also. On the other hand the writer would 
warn against going to the other extreme of refusing to find any 
interest in education among Groote’s disciples at Deventer. 
Radewijns had been too intimate a friend of Groote not to have 
felt the need of better teachers and better schools. See: M. 
Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, pp. 24-25, and especially 
Th. a Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. XXIV, § 2. 

155. J. H. Gerretsen, Florentius Radewijns, pp. 67-70. 

156. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 19. 

157. See p. 36; cf. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, 
p. II, note 1, and p. 19. 

158. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, pp. 17-18. 

159. See pp. 92-97. 

160. W. F. N. Rootselaar, Amersfoort, vol. II (1898), p. 12. 

161. E. Barnikol, Luther in Magdeburg, p. 56. 

162. See p. 114. 

163. P. Opmerus, Martyrum Batavicorum, p. 152 (quoted in: 
D. van Bleysweyck, Delft, p. 520): “A duodecim ingenuis 
adolescentibus gratuito habitatur, qui severis constricti legibus 
ad perdiscendas liberales disciplinas Scholam publicam quae in 
proximo est, frequentant”. 

164. D. van Bleysweyck, Delft, p. 519: “Gelegen ’t eynde de 
Schoolstraet achter aen Stads-wallen en recht tegen over ’t 
voorbeschreve Oude Weduwenhuys van Charitaten, opgerecht 
om eenige Latijnsche Scholieren, die van geen middelen en 
nochtans van goede apparentie en naerstigheyt waren te alimen- 
teren en in de Studie tot den Kercken-dicnst op te trecken”’. — 
Speech made by Theodore Graviae, prior of Windesheim, in the 
brethren-house at Delft: “Insuper id quod studetis refundere 
potestis in iuvenibus, qui apta sunt vasa ad Dei graciam sus- 
cipiendam” (found in: J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windes- 
heim, vol. III, p. 331). — S. W. A. Drossaers, Archieven van 
de Delftsche statenkloosters, p. 322. 

165. Chronicle of the Brethren-house at Doesburg, pp. 38, 
46, 84. 

166. Henric van Arnhem’s Kronyk van het fraterhuis te 
Gouda, p. 40: “Et tunc dominus Cornelius suos retraxit fratres, 
excepto quod dominus Jacobus Naeldwijc usque in annum 


NOTES 391 


sexagesimum permanere permissus est. Qui satis fideliter egit 
in omnibus pro ista domo, tanquam membrum hujus fuisset, et 
precipue in regendo scolas in domo, unde satis bonum lucrum 
habuimus et graciam atque amiciciam bonorum hominum 
quorum filios bene informavit in disciplinis scolasticis et bonis 
moribuss22 543. In principio” antequam scolas habebamus et 
sic favorem hominum acquirebamus........ ifatresi wc ures in 
multis deficiebant”’. P. 45: “Et alia pars subdivisionis erat 
camera, in qua unus erat lectus repositus pro hospitibus recipien- 
dis, in qua, quia alius locus non fuit, scolas habebant scolares et 
commensales hic visitantes”. 

167. H. F. van Heussen and H. van Rhijn, Oudheden van 
Deventer, vol. I, p. 216. 

168. J. van Waasberge, Beschrijving van Geraartsbergen, vol. 
II, p. 37. 

169. Provincial ehines Groningen, 1511, no. 23. “Wy Bor- 
gemester en Raed in Groningen betugen mit desen openen 
brewe voer ons en onse nakomelingen dat wij tot vereweringhe 
vordernisse ende behulp der guder leringhe der scholers in onser 
stat ter eren Goedes puerlike om Goedes willen hebben opge- 
dragen en overgegeven........ den pater en broders des con- 
vents des fraterhuses”’........ (the Brethren of the Common 
Life are to get a part of the city wall on condition that they 
build a house on it and instruct children). — H. G. Feith, Het 
klerkenhuis en het fraterhuis te Groningen, appendix no. VI, 
p. 19: “De conventualen........ sullen altoes voer ogen hebben, 
dat selve huis, eersts geinstitueert ende de guederen daer to van 
beginne sint gegeven gewest, om de ioeget toe leeren, toe in- 
stitueren ende te tuchtigen ende voorts in de wetenheit van 
kunsten unde disciplinen unde in de kentnisse Goedes Almach- 
tich unde sine godtlijcke deensten geoeffent te worden, om 
aldaer een christelijck anvoetsel ende seminarii der heijlliger 
kercke op te richten’’. 

170. H. F. van Heussen and H. van Rhijn, Oudheden van 
Deventer, vol. I, p. 215. Several references are given here, from 
one of which it appears that often more than 1200 pupils were 
attending the school of the Brethren of the Common Life in 
that city. Cf. J. Lindeborn, Historia episcopatus Daventriensis, 
p. 132; G. Bonet-Maury, De opera scholastica fratrum vitae 
communis, p. 80. See particularly: Gysberti Coeverincx, Ana- 
lecta, part II, ed. by G. van den Elsen and W. Hoevenaars, p. 82. 


392 NOTES 


171. L. Ktickelhahn, Johannes Sturm, pp. 9, 10-13. — G. 
Bonet-Maury, De opera scholastica, p. 90. 

172. E. Barnikol, Luther in Magdeburg, pp. 3-18, p. 60. 

173. E. Wintzer, Die Schule der Kugelherren in Marburg, 
pp. 161-163. — FE. Barnikol, Luther in Magdeburg, pp. 56-50. _ 

174. H. D. J. van Schevichaven, Oud-Nijmegens kerken, 
Pp. IOI, 103-105. 

175. G. C. F. Lisch, Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst in 
Mecklenburg, p. 36. — B. Lesker, Die Rostocker Fraterherren, 
pp. 147-148. 

176. A. Dekker, De Hieronymusschool te Utrecht, pp. 8-59. — 
W. Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis, vol., II, part II, p. 245. — S. Muller, 
Catalogussen, Stads-archief, part I (1913), p. 123. 

177. M. Godet, La Congrégation de Montaigu, p. 3. 

178. The Brethren of the Common Life conducted a very 
flourishing school at Hulsbergen, according to Dr. Moll (CW. 
Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis, vol. II, part II, p. 244). At Harderwijk 
also they had a very good school: H. Bouman, Geschiedenis der 
voormalige Geldersche Hoogeschool, vol. I, pp. 6-11. 

179. Consilium Joannis Sturmii, in: G. Bonet-Maury, De 
opera scholastica, p. 90: “Leodii, Daventriae, Zwollae, Vuasaliae 
literarum exercitationes habent, eisque unum assignatum locum, 
distributum suis ordinibus, atque ex illis ludis feliciora et plura 
plerumque prodeunt ingenia quam ex vicinis, ut vocant, 
Academiis”’. 

180. I. J. van Doornink, Bouwstoffen voor een geschiedenis 
van het onderwijs in Overijssel, part IX (1888), p. 98. — M. 
Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, pp. 110-11T. 

181. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. 116. — I. J. 
van Doornink, Bouwstoffen, part IX, p. 98. 

182. M. Schoengen, Die Schule von Zwolle, p. r19. 

183. Ibid., pp. 120-121. 

184. M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, p. 37. 

185. See p. 97. 

186. W. Dillenberger, Al. Hegius, pp. 483-484. This village 
is situated in the “Kreis” of Ahaus, about four miles south-east 
of Gronau, and six miles from the present Dutch frontier. 

187. H.E. J. Vandervelden, Agricola, p. 80. 

188. P. §. Allen, Opus ep. Erasmi, vol. I, p. 580, n. 23. 

189. Ibidem. 

190. J. Butzbach, Auctarium, p. 231. 


NOTES 393 


191. W. Dillenburg, Al. Hegius, p. 490. 

192. W. Gansfort, Opera omnia, preface, where among other 
references this letter is found: Alexander Hegius doctissimo 
atque praestantissimo M. Wesselo Groningensi, qui Lux. Mundi: 
“Mitto tibi, vir praestantissime, Homilias Ioannis Chrysostomi 
dababhos ett Non enim decet me quidquam habere quod tecum non 
communicem........ Sequutus sum consilium tuum, pernitiosa 
enim literatura est, quae enim jactura probitatis discitur. Vale, 
et siquid me facere voles, mihi significato, et factum putato. 
Ex Daventria”. This letter is also found in the Dialogi of 
Hegius. 

193. L. Geiger, Renaissance und Humanismus, pp. 391-392. 

194. A. Hegius, Letter to Gansfort: “Fui, ut nosti, in Cusana 
bibliotheca. Illic reperi multos Hebraicos libros, mihi prorsus 
ignotos: ex Graecis autem pauciores inveni’. 

195. In one section of his Dialogi he includes a great many 
statements about grammatical constructions, written in the 
dialect of Westphalia and Overijssel. 

196. D. Reichling, Murmellius, p. 11. 

197. A. Hegius, Dialogi (1503), fol. 82>. 

198. D. Reichling, Murmellius, p. 13. 

199. J. Butzbach, Auctarium, p. 238. 

200. He died on December 27, 1498. 

201. J. Butzbach, Auctarium, p. 239. 

202. Ibid., p. 239. — Cf. L. Geiger, Rebaiaaance Pp. 393. 

203th iE. S. Allen, Opus ep. Erasmi, vol. I, p. 118. — J. Linde- 
boom, Bijb. humanisme, p. 77. — J. Lindeboom, Bijb. hum., 
p. 70. — H. E. J. Vandervelden, Agricola, p. 81, p. 144. 

204. J. Butzbach, Auctarium, p. 220. 

205 DIds, ap. = 230. 

206. J. Lindeboom, Bijb. hum., p. 70. 

207. Cf. J. Lindeboom, Bijb. hum., p. 121. — W. Moll, J. 
Brugman, vol. II, p:-79: “En wat zag Brugman in deze Deven- 
tersche mannen, waarom hij hun zulk een veelbeteekenenden lof 
toezwaaide? De gansche inhoud van den brief leert het: hij zag” 
in de discipelen van Meester Geert en Heer Florens trouwe 
dienaren van God, die met Christus riepen: ‘Laat de kinderkens 
tot ons komen’, opdat zij knapen en jongelingen onderwezen in 
hetgeen een godvruchtig mensch te doen en te laten heeft” (see: 
J. Brugman, Epistolae, ed. W. Moll, p. 216: “O fratres mei 
cordialissimi, de facili ab exerciis necessariis parvulis’ studentulis 


304 NOTES 


averti nolite! A propagacione filiorum Christi cessare ne 
velitis’!). —- Frederic van Baden, bisbop of Utrecht, Epistola 
(1514), ed. M. A. G. Vorstman, p. 126: “Sed palmites vestros in 
decorem domus ejus in diversis ecclesiis et monasteriis extend- 
atis, scholares de rudi saecula colligendo et bonis moribus et 
Dei timore instituendo et fovendo, sicque religiosis domibus et 
ecclesiis habilitando”. — Philip of Burgundy, bishop of Utrecht, 
Epistola (1517), ed. M. A. G. Vorstman, p. 130: “Odor boni 
nominis vestri........ multiplexque fructus, quem in ecclesia 
sua per vos efficit Dominus, nos hortantur et admonent, quo 
favoribus vos prosequamur opportunis”. — J. Butzbach, Auc- 
tarium, p. 237: “Ex quo [Hegius’ ““gymnasium”’] maxime tamen 
nostra in his Germaniae partibus in aptis litteratura personis ab 
‘inicio reformationis suae, quae nondum ad -centesimum ip. aliquo 
pervenisse monasterio perhibetur annum, foveri et enutriri 
meruit”. — F. Jostes, Johannes Veghe, p. XXI: “Dabei tasten 
Sie jedoch weder diese [use of indulgences] noch eine andere 
kirchliche lehre im prinzip an, vielmehr suchen sie diese immer 
nur von dem tberwachsenden aberglauben zu befreien und die 
damit getriebenen missbrauche zu beseitigen”. — K. Loeffler, 
Heinrich von Ahaus (1909), p. 763: “Der Geist der Briiderschaft 
ist die innerliche Erneuerung und Vertiefung des christlichen 
Lebens, die ‘devotio moderna’”, — H: Hermelink, Die: religidsen 
Reformbestrebungen des deutschen Humanismus, p. 9: “Ihre 
[Brethren of the Common Life] geschichtliche Aufgabe war 
nicht nur die Schaffung einer kirchlichen TLaienkultur auf 
religios-innerlichster Grundlage, sondern ihre von der Kirche 
genehmigte und unterstitzte Organisation diente gegen Ende 
Fri yen auch zur Verbreitung der eigentlich humanistischen 
Bewegung in den Niederlanden und in Norddeutschland”. — 
P. Mestwerdt, Die Anfange des Erasmus, p. 134. 

208. D. Reichling, Murmellius, p. 9. 

209. Cf. D. Reichling, Ortwin Gratius, pp. 60-81. — L. Geiger, 
Renaissance und Humanismus, p. 4290. — L. Geiger, Reuchlin, 
pp. 248-252. — J. Lindeboom, Bijb. humanisme, pp. 106-108. 

210. J. G. de Hoop Scheffer, Geschiedenis der Heryvorming 
in Nederland (1870), p. 28. 

211. J. Geny, Geschichte der Stadtbibl. zu Schlettstadt, p. 18. 

212. G. C. Knod. Aus der Bibl. des B. Rhenanus, p. 4. — 
J. Knepper, Jacob Wimpfeling, p. 6. 

213... Vol) 1,5 pAXIV: 


NOTES 395 


214. Aus der Bibl. des B. Rhen., pp. 5-6. 

215. G. C. Knod, Aus der Bibl. des Beatus Rhenanus, p. 7. 

216. L. Geiger, Ren. und Hum., p. 388. 

217. G. C. Knod, Bibl. des Beat. Rhen., pp. 8-12. 

218. Ibid. p. 4. 

219. J. Knepper, Das Schulwesen in Elsass, p. 330: “Es sagt 
genug, dass sein erstes Schulbtichlein erbaulicher Natur war: 
eine Erklarung der sieben Busspsalmen nach Gregor dem 
Grossen’”. It may be of interest to note that the first selections 
from the Bible translated by Gerard Groote into the vernacular 
were those very same penitential psalms. 

220. G. C. Knod, Bibl. des Beat. Rhen., p. 16, note 4. 

221. See p. 99. 

222. J. B. Nordhoff, Denkwirdigkeiten, p. 122. 


223. D. Reichling, Murmellius, p. 27. — Die Reform der 
Domschule zu Minster, p. 32. — A. Parmet, Rudolf von Langen, 
pp. 67-60. 


224. Cf. A. Bomer, Das lit. Leben in Miinster, p. 43. See also: 
D. Reichling, Die Reform, p. 27. 

225. See: K. Loffler, Das Fraterhaus Weidenbach in Koln, 
PD.  10T, .p: 103: 

226. See: D Reichling, Die Reform, p. 20. 

227. A. Bomer, Der Minstersche Domschulrektor Timann 
Kemner,. p. 184. 

228. D. Reichling, Murm., p. I, p. 3. 

229. Ibid., p. 45, p. 60. 

230. J. Lindeboom, Bijb. hum., p. 92. 

231. D. Reichling, Murmellius, p. 44. 

232. Ibid., pp. 42-43. 

233. See: D. Reichling, Die Reform, p. 65. 

234. L. Geiger, Ren. und Hum., p. 3907. — D. Reichling, 
Murmellius, p. 47. 

235. See: D. Reichling, Murmellius, pp. 46, 48-60, 88-94, 98-115. 
On pp. 132-165 a list of his works is given. 

236. L. Geiger, Ren. und Hum., p. 308. 

237. D. Reichling, Murmellius, p. rot. 

238. D. Reichling, Die Reform, p. 69-70. 

239. Ibid., pp. 74-75. — D. Reichling, Die Humanisten J. 
Horlenius u. J. Montanus. 

240. See: A. Egen, Der Einfluss der Miinsterschen Dom- 
schule auf die Ausbreitung des Humanismus. 


NOTES TO.CHAPTER IV - 


J. Busch, Chronicon Wind., p. 43. 

W. J. Kiihler, Brinckerinck, pp. 23-24. 

J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 44. 

D. A. Brinkerink, Vita Brinck., p. 327. 

J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 343. 

See J. G. R. Acquoy, Windesheim, vol. II, pp. 7-10. Cf. 
M. Schoengen, Narratio, pp. LXIII-LXIV. 


PS eee lates 


7. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., pp. 343-344; cf. J. G. R. Acquoy, 


Windesheim, vol. II, pp. 8-9. 

8. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 344.— 

9. J. G. R. Acquoy, Windesheim, vol. II, pp. 9-10. 

10. J. G. R. Acquoy, Windesheim, vol. II, p. to. 

11. Ibid., pp. 11-13. 

fa IOI. VOLE Ls = pad 3 

13. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., pp. 344-345. — J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Windesheim, vol. III, p. 26; vol. II, p. 13 n. 1. 

14. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 348. — J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Wind., vol. III, p. 34. . 

15. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 345. — J. H. Richter, Frens- 
wegen, p. 16. 

16. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 349. — J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Wind., vol. III, p. 38. 

17. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 350. 

Foe bid. 0p." 2350. 

19. Ibid., p. 351. — J. G. R. Acquoy, Wind., vol. III, p. 54. 

20. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 351. — J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Wind., vol. III, p. 62. 

21. J. Busch, Chron. Wind pp. 352-353. —.J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Wind., vol. II, pp. 16-18. 

22. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., pp. 365-366, p. 401. — C. Block, 
Chronicle, ed. J. G. C. Joosting, p. 48. — Ordinationes Windes- 
hemense, pp. 15, 20. 

23. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 366. 

24. Ibid., p. 366. — J. G. R. Acquoy, Wind., vol. III, p. 92. 

25. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 366. — J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Wind., vol. III, p. 94. 


396 


NOTES 397 


26. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., p. 482. — J. G. R. Acquoy, 
Wind., vol. III, p. 97. 

27. B. P. Velthuysen, Twee onbekende conventen, p. 41. 

28° i<Thids 9) pi-4br es 

29. J. G. R. Acquoy, Wind., vol. II, p. 55. 

30. Ioannis ab Horstmaria, Chronica, fol. 2-38, 

3t. Ibid., fol. 5>-6a. 

32. J. H. Richter, Frenswegen, pp. 16-17. 

33. J. Busch, Chron. Wind., pp. 165-172, 175-179. — Ioannis 
ab Horstmaria, Chronica, fol. 309-335. — J. H. Richter, Frens- 
wegen, pp. 19-21. 

34. V. Becker, Een onbekende kronijk, p. 388. — J. GR 
Acquoy, Wind., vol. I, p. 291 n. 3. 

35. J. Busch, Liber de ref. mon., p. 393. 

20.5 Ubids..- ps 305: 

37. Ibid. pp. 396-397, 708. 


38. Ibid., p. 402. 

39. Ibid., p. 404. 

40. Ibid., p. 406. 

Ales LDids pi 700% Cl... paw AV 
4X iL Did.. pie VL. Te 

43. Ibid. p. 420. 

Adve Did see Da 32: 

45. Ibid., p. 452. 

46. Ibid., p. 433. 


47. Ibid. pp. 452, 457. 

48. Ibid. pp. 457-459. 

49. Ibid., pp. 459-460. 

50. Ibid., p. 455. 

51. Ibid., pp. 555-568. 

52. Ibid., p. 730. — Chron. Wind., p. 247. 

53. J. Busch, De ref. mon., p. 784. 

54. Ibid., p. 498. : 

55. Ibid., pp. 431-432. 

56. Ibid., pp. 530-544, 613-615. 

57. Ibid., pp. 562-565, 568-572, 588-507, 617-618, 629-632. 

58. Ibid., pp. 505-507, 514-517. 

59. K. Grube, Die Legationsreise des Cardinals Nikolaus 
von Cusa, p. 304. 

60. See: P. E. Schatten, Kloster Boddiken. — L. Schmitz- 
Kallenberg, Monumenta Budicensa. 


398 


61. 
62. 
63. 
64. 
65. 
66. 
67. 


NOTES 


W. J. Kihler, Brinckerinck, p. 313. 

See pp. 15, 48, 63-64, 88. 

W. J. Kihler, Brinckerinck, pp. 313-316. 

Ibid., pp. 317-318. 

[bids Spss3to: 

Ibid., p. 334. 

Ibid., pp. 326-335; here the whole story of the reform 


at Hilwartshausen is found. 


88. 
Pp. 200, 
89. 
90. 
ol. 
92. 
93. 


Ibid., p. 335. 

W. Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis, vol. II, part II, p. 227. 
J. G. R. Acquoy,. Windesheim, vol. I, pp. 205-206. 
Ibid., pp. 207-211. 

J. G. R. Acquoy, Windesheim, vol. II, p. 127. 
Ibid., vol. II, pp. 300-301. 

Ibid., vol. I, p. 190; vol. II, pp. 281-282, 

Ibid., vol. I, pp. 187-188. 

Ibid., vol. I, pp. 99-106. 

Ibid., vol. I, pp. 186-189. 

Ibid., vol. II, p. 280. 

Ibid., vol. I, p. 184. 

Ibid., vol. II, pp. 284-205. 

Ibid., vol. I, p. 108. 

Tbid., vol. II, pp. 204-207. 

Ibid., vol. II, 198-199. 

Ibid., vol. II, p. 195. 

Tbid., vol. II, p. 143. 

J. Busch, Chron. Wind., pp. 311-312. 

Ibid, p. XTX n. 1. 

Ibid., p. 312. — J. G. R. Acquoy, Windesheim, vol. II, 
p. 214. 

J. G. R. Acquoy, Windesheim, vol. II, pp. 229-230. — 
Ibid., vol. II, pp. 236-237. 

Ibid., vol. II, p. 238. 

Phd ovoly (L=p: 5327. 

Ibid., vol. II, pp. 258-262. 


} 
f 
4 
; 
L 





NOTES TO CHAPTER V 


1. A. J. Thebaud, Who wrote the Imitation of Christ? in: 
American Cath. Quart. Rev., 1883, p. 650. 

2. O. A. Spitzen, Thomas a Kempis, p. 2. — E. Waterton, 
Thomas a Kempis, p. 22. ’ 

3. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, pp. 44-62. 

4. Book I, ch. 22 (p. 4329-31 of Pohl’s edition); book I, ch. 13 
(p. 2215-19); book III, ch. 55 (p. 2508-10). 

Sesle 25. (p. §3°°) 5111, 19 Cp. 178") 5 103) Cp 10-6) a LES 38 
Cpepatace-=*) CLL ows 2 DA 244208) tL, Cpa ool). 

Ocrlault s(pinioutty i ihnse(p;) 1512528) Ts utp gOtaeee ys, 
TTS 9 bop. 700-8 p07 544 )s7 LL 1935; 

7. I, 3 (p. 101924); IV, 7 (p. 10922-25,p. 10927-1101); II, 10 
RDag7h ri) sella 4 Ape 150%") > TIT, 56) (ps 2522"-2532) > Be 8; 
LTT 45e(p. 225%"); TIT, 53.(p. 24410-11), 

Sy 1p Sa( pi rg2427).. E10; ©1520 (pe 3518-367) > TIT 54). (p. 
Anesth eld dh 5G) Ope, 2567928727) S001. 6 (p.. 60-18) 2 Lina Cp. 
Cote a re Cpe OP 10) nT 018 (Cp. 3ttek) oT 25 (p55) well O 
CU emeda 92) teh d st Fe (Day 70%!4) FIT) Os LEE 200 (pee igalons). 
III, 45 (p. 2239-11), 
eos yal2 (Dy 207828) 51 172 (peg 208) sail 236 (oma get eABey 
Materia a Oto) LL 63 (p aaqee-t5) 52 LIT S50 (Deco leeae ye 
1 21 (p. 39° Bee); ITI, 57- 

Peat 2. ( Pa 859-1402 py. 8717-20). 

Ir. See p. 8o. 

Pore aA 133.20, 36 rs sk T5518: 

Pelee Ogee) orn DL 13: 

14. I, 7; I, 12 (p. 211-3); I, 20 (p. 3612-18); II, to (p. 7815-24) ; 
Ill, 7 (p.. 15811-30),"" 

Deeg (Des 2578-82):: TL tap. 827-8): LTT 920-374 EE 30 
{p. 21519-22); IV, 8. 

LO 2A (Do. S18*4,'9-42)*) TT 12. (p. 8885). 

P7ne oi 2y UV Sekt, 14) 027511; £1,. 15); 44," 83. 

Topu ln i7 sao pel; 15301, 23. (pn46'248) > Lu ro .(p. 34421) alin? 
Kpip14}5). 

TO abet uf Di 611-18)» TTT a4: 42,746;- S07) 1 V5 7.7.5,00,4:15: 

GGteteel 7) (0. 201) ab, Te 7th LITs GL Von gr reNty: 


399 


400 © NOTES 


21.. I, /13.2(p. 23°) 1, 14, 15,086, 2253-1, 33 (pn Gatiaes, 
III, 25 (p. 192); III, 45 cr 2254-6), 

27. ne 27 (p. 1958-19), 

23. 1 (p. 595-6, 9-11, 14-16); TIT, 2 (p. 14477-1454); III, 40 
(p. 68st): Li ADs Ot): 

24. III, 43 (p. 2207-22); I, 3 (p. 10114); I, 1 (p. 67-14); I, 3 
(p.7836-28) S111, 337 (p. 146°-1) ; III, 43; III, 44 (p. 149%). 

25. See pp. 19-20, 54, 80. 

26. See pp. 20-21, 34. 

27. III, 4 (p. 1508-1514); III, 5, 53, 54, 55- 

28. 1Ai7,:'55 .(p:- 2504-47). 

29. Epistle of James, ch. II, 14, 19-20. 

30. III, 3 (p. 14727-29). 

31. V. Becker, L’auteur de l’Imitation, p. 4. 

32. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, p. 264. 

33. J. Mooren, Th. a Kempis, p. 113. 

BAL relbid.) 20. °32,. Day 227 

35. Ibid., pp. 230-231: “Wy Schepene van Kempen, doen 
Mant 5 panes Dis vurss. coepp is geschiet mit volkomen willen 
ind gehenkenysse her johan hemerkes priesters canonichs van 
den regulieren, die myt verteighen heit vur sich ind Thomaes 
synen witlichen broeder myt wytlichen vertyghenysse als vur 
uns recht ind gewoenlich is”. In spite of this Puyol wrote as 
late as 1899: “Il y a incertitude sur son nom véritable”. 

36. See p. 86. 

37. H. Rosweyden, Vindiciae, p. 123. 

38. Th. a Kempis, Vita Joh. Gronde, ch. I, § 2. 

39. Ibid. 

40. Th. a4 Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. XXIV. 

41. Th. a4 Kempis, Vita Joh. Gronde, ch. I, § 2. 

42. Th. a Kempis, Vita Arn. Schoonhoviae, § 3. 

43. Ibid. 

44. Th. a Kempis, Vita Joh. Gronde, ch. I, § 2. 

45. Th. a Kempis, Vita Arn. Schoonh., § 3. 

46. Th. & Kempis, Vita Flor., ch. XVI, § 4. 

47. It should also be borne in mind that Thomas 4 Kempis 
was only one of the many boys who happened to be copying 
religious writings at Deventer. From far and near they had 
come to Deventer to attend school there, and, as happened with 
Thomas Hemerken of Kempen, to “learn to read and write the 
Holy Scriptures and books on moral subjects”. Thus thousands 


NOTES 401 


of manuscripts were written at Deventer, which as a rule were 
taken home when the boys left the Yssel country, or, in case 
they entered some monastery, these manuscripts were added to 
the library of that monastery. It is a great pity that so few 
writers have investigated this phase of the influence exerted by 
the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, Zwolle, and 
elsewhere. The only one who appears to have mentioned the 
subject is Dr. M. Schoengen of Zwolle, who found three manu- 
scripts in the Episcopal Seminary at Liége which expressly 
mention the fact that they had been written at Deventer and 
Zwolle. Schoengen even claims that in the library of this in- 
stitution twenty-five unpublished treatises of Groote are found 
(M. Schoengen, Nederlandica in Belgische archieven, p. 180). 
But after a careful examination of the manuscripts in question 
during the summer of the year 1920, the present writer noticed 
that many of them were in all probability copied at Deventer, 
but not a single unpublished treatise written by Groote is found 
in any one of them. And still this subject is of such significance 
that results cannot fail the serious student. A few examples 
might illustrate the nature of this interesting problem. In the 
“Stadt- und Landesbibliothek”’ at Diisseldorf a manuscript is 
found, called Ms. B. 180, containing 171 folios. Some extracts 
from Groote’s writings were written in it and other material 
by a certain “John Nijell at Deventer in the year 1458, when 
seated in the ‘Nova domo clericorum’”, which was the building 
constructed by the Brethren of the Common 'Life for the purpose 
of accommodating poor school boys with proper board and 
lodging (see p. 104). Manuscript G. B. 8°83 of the “Stadt- 
bibliothek” at Cologne also contains a note stating that this 
manuscript had been written at Deventer (fol. 90b: “Explicit 
iste liber scriptus et completus per manus Wilhelmi Vos de 
Ghiecen anno Domini 1416 in profesto Valentini Daventrie”). 
And on fol. ta of Ms. G. B. 8976 of the same library we read the 
following statement: “Iste libellus pertinet fratribus s. Crucis in 
Colonia et vocatur Farago ea quod in eo multa ac diversa raptim 
undique collecta sint, et primo do servire Deo et multis aliis 
ut patet in folio sequenti, wbi ponitur eciam per numerum 
foliorum”, This table of contents is found on fol. 2a-3a, while 
on fol. 8b we read: “Sequuntur multa bona collecta Swollis 
ante annos 30a, quorum tabula in principio huius habetur”. On 
fol. 12b we find the date 1412. Unfortunately it was not 


402 NOTES 


customary in those days to write such notes in the manuscripts, 
wherefore it is difficult to estimate how many of them were 
written by pupils of the Brethren of the Common Life. Only 
incidentally do we find indications which lead to definite con- 
clusions. One very interesting example is the-~ following. 
Manuscript G. B. 4° 249 of the City ‘Library at Cologne was 
written at Deventer, though we would never have known about 
this, if a very curious accident had not impelled the copyist to 
mention the fact. He had already copied the Sermo de nativitate 
Domini in this manuscript under the title of Tractatus magistri 
Gerardi dicti Groet de Daventria de quatuor generibus medita- 
bilium sive contemplacionum. We are very grateful to him for 
that, as until a few years ago the Sermo de nativitate Domini 
by Groote had been thought lost, and as it was believed that 
the Tractatus de quatuor generibus meditabilium was a separate 
work. Next he had copied a few extracts from Gregory (fol. 
13-15»), followed on fol. 22 by Groote’s De locatione curae 
animarum and an excerpt from the Liber apum, called De 
pluritate beneficiorum, which he believed to be also a treatise 
composed by Groote (fol. 37>: “Expliciunt valde horribilia de 
pluritate beneficiorum visa a magistro Gerardi dicto Groet de 
Daventria”), The words: “visa a magistro Gerardi dicto Groet 
de Daventria” were scratched out by a later hand and the 
following note written on the margin: “Ex libro apum scripta”. 
On fol. 38a he had begun a treatise on the ten commandments 
and had already come to the top of the second column of 
fol. 68, when his work was interrupted. A cat soiled the page 
on which he had been writing, wherefore the next morning he 
drew a picture there of the cat and added the following com- 
mentary: “Confound that wretched cat which soiled this page 
one night at Deventer. Care must be taken that no books are 
left open at night where cats are”. On fol. 73b he finished the 
Commentum super decem precepta, and on fol. 73-908 we find 
the Tractatus de peccatis capitalibus sive mortalibus, 

48. See: H. Rosweyden, Vindiciae, p. 110. 

49. Th. a Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. XIII, § 2. 

50. Ibid., ch. XVIII, § 3. 

51. What is worse, even those who claim to be very much 
interested in the lives and writings of the Brethren of the 
Common Life have failed to give substantial evidence of their 
interest. In the meantime the works of a great many minor 





NOTES 403 


reformers and less influential scholars have been published 
everywhere. Is it not a pity that nowhere in any Dutch 
library can one find — or could not in 1920 — the letters of 
Groote which Nolte published? And to think that Groote’s 
Septem verba dicta a Domino, perhaps his best work, is prac- 
tically unknown, even in Holland. And as for his “Sermo de 
nativitate Domini”, what writer has ever made use of it? In 
Zerbolt’s case the situation is still worse. Zerbolt was the 
greatest scholar and the most influential writer the Brethren 
of the Common Life at Deventer could ever boast of. But 
what do even the friends of Thomas a Kempis say about him? 
Professor F. Jostes of Minster, who rightly claims that the 
De Imitatione Christi is a sort of “rapiarium”, and must have 
been the work of some follower of Gerard Groote (F. Jostes, 
Nieuwe bijzonderheden over de Navolging, p. 272) wrote 
something very strange about Zerbolt. Gerard Zerbolt of 
Zutphen, Jostes declared, could never have written the De libris 
teutonicalibus, or the Super modo vivendi (F. Jostes, Die 
Schriften des Gerhard Zerbolt van Zutfen, pp. 8-9). He uses 
about the same arguments that are brought forward by the 
antagonists of Thomas a Kempis. Now the fact is that Jostes 
had never seen the De libris teutonicalibus, And who has ever 
made intelligent use of ithe Super modo vivendi by Zerbolt? 
Next came Wiistenhoff and declared that Zerbolt also could 
not have written the “De preciosis vestibus”, and certainly not 
his “Scriptum pro quodam” (D. J. M. Wiistenhoff, “Florentii 
parvum et simplex exercitum”, p. 90). Nobody in Holland 
seems to have raised a voice against these critics, although the 
latter did not bring forward any positive evidence to prove 
their assumptions. Somebody must have written those four 
treatises. They were found in the library of the Brethren of 
the Common Life at Deventer by J. Revius, one of the best 
scholars of seventeenth century Holland. Zerbolt had been 
librarian there and somebody in that library had written a note 
in the manuscript to the effect that Zerbolt was the author of 
them all. None of the original sources give us any justification 
for doubting the veracity of Revius’ report. And still a few 
unsound arguments have made nearly everybody in Holland 
believe the statements of a foreign scholar, who knew prac- 
tically nothing about Zerbolt, rather than Revius, their own 
countryman, whose statements are supported by Rudolph Dier 


404 NOTES 


of Muiden, next to Thomas 4 Kempis the best biographer of 
Groote and his disciples at Deventer (see: A. Hyma, Is Gerard 
Zerbolt of Zutphen the author of the “Super modo vivendi’’? 
p. 114). If Zerbolt could not have written the Super modo 
vivendi, then Thomas a Kempis certainly was neither the author 
nor tthe editor of the De Imitatione Christi. Hence one need 
not be surprised to find so many modern writers who have 
taken up arms against the friends of Thomas 4 Kempis. 

52. According to Rosweyden he went to Mount St. Agnes 
in 1399 (Vindiciae, p. 110), and his probation lasted for six years 
(Vindiciae, p. 111), but according to the continuation of the 
Chronicon Mt. St. Agnetis by an anonymous writer, he was 
invested in 1406. 

53. V. Becker, L’auteur de Il’Imitation, p. 7. 

54. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, p. 267. 

55. The above selection is taken from D. V. Scully's trans- 
lation of the Sermons to the Novices Regular, pp. XXI-X XII. 

56. See: Thomas a Kempis, Opera, Nuremberg 1494, fol. 
84>-854, where a biography is given by an anonymous writer. 
This sketch is also found in a manuscript at The Hague, and 
is edited in the edition of the “Imitation” by L. Peters, Leiden 
1902, where on pp. XI-XV a list of the 38 works is given. 
Since neither the Opera of the year 1494 are accessible to most 
students, nor the other work mentioned here, a few excerpts 
are inserted here from the latter: “Hic Thomas cognomento 
Heymergijn [Hemerken], id est Malleus, qui vere malleus 
existens in sttis dictis et tractatibus, devotis et indevotis........ 
Multum affabilis et consolatorius fuit infirmis et tentatis iste 
bonus et devotus pater, et valde zelosus pro salute animarum; 


et omnes cupiebat salvos fieri sicut se ipsum........ Et quia 
in juventute incepit congregare divitias, scilicet virtutum, ideo 
sortitus est nomen bonorum........ Item adhuc multa alia 


pluro audivi a fratribus illius conventus, qui adhuc vivunt, quod 
vix millesimam partem enarravi scribendo. Sed quid dicam 
amplius? Sicut alios docuit et instruxit dictando et scribendo, 
sic ipse fecit vivendo: opera implevit quod sermonibus dixit 
esse faciendum.......... Hic Thomas multum profecit in vir- 
tutibus, de die in diem proficiens, addens semper fervorem 
fervori, devotionem devotioni, virtutem virtuti, ita ut omnes 
mirabantur de ejus fervore et devotione; et quia multum humilis 
fuit, ideo a Deo magnam et singularem gratiam meruit habere, 
sicut patet ex ejus dictis’’. 





NOTES 405 


57. See pp. 64-65. 

58. The quotations are all from: Th. 4a Kempis, The founders 
of the New Devotion, ed. J. P. Arthur, pp. 50, 54, 67, 72-73, 
153-160, 192-207, 238, 251, 260. 

59. F. R. Cruise, Thomas a Kempis, pp. 159-160. Cf. E. 
Amort, Ded. crit., p. 50. 

60. A. Loth, L’auteur de ’Im., pp. 531-537. 

61. Ibid., p. 547: “Il est certain qu’en 1406 l’Imitation était 
non seulement composée, mais connue et propagée”. 

62. V. Becker, Thomas van Kempen (1892), p. II. 

63. Ibid., p. 14. That Holland is so poorly represented is due 
to the wholesale destruction of Catholic libraries by Dutch 
reformers. 

64. See: J. E. G. De Montmorency, Th. 4 Kempis, p. XIX, 
pp. I10-112, 

65. V. Becker, Thomas van Kempen (1892), p. 9. 

66. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, pp. 181-190. 

67. O. A. Spitzen, Nouvelle défense, pp. 50-51. The manu- 
script in question contains the following note: “Notandum quod 
iste tractatus editus est a probo et egregrio viro magistro 
[master of the novices] Thoma de Monte sancte Agnetis...... 
descriptus ex manu autoris in Trajecto [in the bishopric of 
Utrecht] anno 1425”. Hirsche, however, refuses to believe that 
this is the correct date (see his Prologomena, vol. III, pp. 
Ov mise) 

68. O. A. Spitzen, Les Hollandismes, p. 74. 

69. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, pp. 174-181. — O. A. 
Spitzen, Les Hollandismes, p. 63. 

70. O. A. Spitzen, Th. 4 Kempis gehandhaafd, pp. 58-60. On 
the last page of the manuscript in which Spitzen discovered 
this very important translation we read: “Item een boeken van 
gheesteliken vermaningen qui sequitur me’. Hence book I was 
originally drawn ‘up in Latin. This translation was made by 
John Scutken, the friend of Thomas a Kempis (see: O. A. 
Spitzen, Les Hollandismes, p. 61; Nouvelle défense, p. 42). 

71. O. A. Spitzen, Nouv. déf., p. 110; Nalezing, p. 35. 

72. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, pp. 190-1901. 

73. O. A. Spitzen, Nouv. déf., p. 100. 

74. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, p. 194. — E. Barnikol, 
Studien, p. 64. 

75. O. A. Spitzen, Les Hollandismes, p. 62. 


406 NOTES 


76. O. A. Spitzen, Nouv. déf., pp. 58, 197-199. 

77. 'L,. Korth, Die alteste deutsche Uebersetzung der “Imitatio 
Christi’, pp. 89-90: “Van Jhesus geboirt syn jair getzalt dusent 
ind vierhundert, vierinddrissich dar zu gestalt, wie seer mich 
des verwundert. Darumb eyn frunt van mynnen hait uns ge- 
schreven eyn bochelyn, der en woulde sich nyt nennen, dat ist 
ym eyn ewich gewyn. Dat bochlijn ist mir komen vur zu setzen 
uss dem latijne ind heist ‘qui me sequitur’”. See also p. 91, 
where the last word of line 80 of this poem is contracted with 
the last word of line 74, thus forming the name of the brethren- 
house at Cologne, of which the Weidenbach Strasse still 
reminds us to-day. 

78. See: V. Becker, Thomas van Kempen (1892), pp. 16-19. 
Becker mentions copies of the years 1428, 1429, 1433, 1436, 
brought to Liége, Erfurt and other places. 

70." }i, Busch; Chron= Wind sp. 582s rate os qui plures 
devotos tractatulos composuit, videlicet ‘qui sequitur’ de imita- 
cione Christi cum aliis’’. 

80. “All that the supporters of Thomas a Kempis have left’, 
triumphantly exclaimed Wolfsgruber in his well-known work 
on the abbot Gersen, “is the account by Busch and the: auto- 
graph of Thomas a Kempis, finished in 1441” (C,. Wolfsgruber, 
Gersen, p. 74). On one page he claims that Thomas 4 Kempis 
cannot have written the “Soliloquium animae” (p. 63), while a 
little further he points to the difference in style between the 
“Soliloquium animae” and the “Imitation”. Thomas, being the 
author of the first work, could not very well have written the 
latter, he asserts (pp. 83-85)! G. Kentenich wrote an article in 
the Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte, called: Zum _ Imitatio 
Christi — Streit, in which he made some very interesting state- 
ments. John Busch, the celebrated missionary of Windesheim, 
was such a foolhardy liar, he asserts, that inasmuch as he calls 
Thomas a Kempis the author of the “Imitation”, his testimonial 
simply proves that Thomas cannot be considered the author 
(see: pp. 468-469 of this article). 

81. See: O. A. Spitzen, Nouvelle défense, p. 48. 

82. See: V. Becker, L’auteur de I’Imitation, pp. 33-55. — J. 
B. Malou, Recherches, pp. 77-89. — V. Becker, Derniers travaux, 
pp. 49-51. — F. R. Cruise, Thomas 4 Kempis, pp. 149-157, 
242-248. The best source on this question remains: E. Amort, 
Ded. critica, pp. 94-118. See also: O. A. Spitzen, Th. 4 Kempis 


£ 


to 
ee 
OG 
y 


i 
a 
: 
i 
4 





NOTES 407 


gehandhaafd, pp. 165-177. — H. Watrigant, La genése des 
Exerc. spirit., p. 104. 

83. See: O. A. Spitzen, Nouv. déf., pp. 44-45. 

84. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. III, pp. 11-14, — A. Loth, 
L’Auteur de l’Imitation, pp. 581-585. — E. Renan, L’Auteur de 
Imitation de Jésus Christ, pp. 320-322. 

85. De im. Christi, book I, ch, XXV. 

- 86. E. Renan, L’Auteur de I’Im., pp. 323-334. — Wolfsgruber, 
J. Gersen, pp. 172-185 (the author is an Italian), 185-198 (written 
in the thirteenth century). Cf. W. Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis, vol 
II, part. II, p. 372: “De volslagen onbekendheid dezer geleerden 
{Renan and his followers] met onze litteratuur van de XIVe en 
XVe eeuw mag bij de waardeering van hunne kritiek niet voor- 
bij gezien worden. Zoo Renan ook maar een enkel stuk van 
Gerlach Peters gelezen had, zou hij in zijn opstel L’auteur de 
Imitation zich onthouden hebben van redeneeringen wier op- 
pervlakkigheid door den fraaijen stijl geenszins bedekt wordt”. 

87. K. Hirsche, Prologomena, vol. II, pp. 2-88. 

88. See p. 19. 

89. O. A. Spitzen, Nouvelle défense, 136-144. 

90. Ibid., p. 162. 

o1. P. Hagen, De Navolging van Christus en Thomas van 
Kempen, p. 40. 

92. J. F. Vregt, Eenige ascetische tractaten, p. 323, p. 330 
They are chapters X and XIII. 

93. Ibid., p. 325. 

94. J. B. Malou, Recherches, pp. 119-120 (from a letter by 
John Vos of Heusden, prior of Windesheim), pp. 391-402 (from 
the Admonitiones of Florentius). 

95. O. A. Spitzen, Thomas 4 Kempis gehandhaafd, pp. 71-82 

96. V. Becker, L’auteur de Il’Imitation, pp. 145-194. 

97. G. Bonet-Maury, E quibus fontibus, pp. 15-37. 

98. V. Becker, De Navolging Christi is een oorspronkelijk 
werk, p. III. ; 

99. Found on pages 27-40 of the issue of the year 1920. 

100. This article has also appeared in the Zeitschrift fiir 
deutsches Altertum, vol. LIX, pp. 23-35. 

1o1. Mss. theol. germ. 8° no. 43 and 4° no. 15. 

102. Ms. theol. germ. 8° no. 54. On fol. 42> a prayer was 
written (ending on fol. 474), which is not found in the “Imita- 
tion”, It is called: “Dit is en innich gebeth alle tyd to lesende 


408 NOTES 

deme mynschen”, and it begins as follows: “Leve Here, ut der 
groten diepe myner sunde rope ick verlorene dochtere tho dy 
vader vul aller gnade”. 

103. On the history of this house see: J: Hartwig, Die 
Frauenfrage im mittelalterlichen Liibeck, in: Hansische Ge- 
schichtsblatter, vol. XIV (1908), pp. 85-88. 

104. On fol 14 of the manuscript in question we read: 
“Anneken Poises op Sunte Johannes hort dyt bock”’. Cf. the 
article mentioned in the preceding note. 

105. See the notices in: Sitzungsberichte der k6On, preuss. Ak. 
der Wiss., for Jan. 1911, pp. 108-109, and in: Neue Jahrbiicher 
fiir das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur, 
vol. XX XI (1913), p. SI. 

106. The Latin equivalent of L has: “Domine, Domine Deus, 
Domine Deus meus, tu Deus Domine Jesu, Domine Deus in- 
spirator et illuminator omnium prophetarum, Domine Deus 
meus aeterna veritas, O veritas mea et misericordia mea, Deus 
meus Trinitas beata, Domine Deus sancte Pater”, and “tu 
clemens et misericors Deus”. The “Imitation”, however, has: 
“Domine, Domine Deus, Domine Deus meus, Deus meus, Deus, 
Domine Jesu, Veritas tue, aeterna Veritas, Pater sancte, Deus 
meus misericordia mea, Pater coelestis, Pater Domini mei Jesu 
Christi, O Pater misericordiarum et Deus totius consolationis, 
te cum unigenito filio tuo et Spiritu Sancto paraclito, Eia 
Domine Deus amator sancte meus, Deus meus amor meus, te 
dilectum meum, tu O dulcissime, O fons amoris perpetui, 
benignissime Jesu, fortissime Deus Israel, Zelator animarum 
fidelium, dulcissime et amantissime Jesu, O mi  dilectissime 
sponse Jesu Christe amator purissime dominator universae 
creaturae, O Jesu splendor aeternae gloriae, solamen peregrin- 
antis animae, tu Deus meus, spes mea, salus aeterna, O Patris 
sapientia, Jesu bone, piissime Deus meus, Deus meus dulcedo 
ineffabilis, Pater dilecte, O lux perpetua, cuncta creata trans- 
cendens lumina, Domine Deus judex juste fortis et patiens, 
Pater juste et semper laudande, Pater amande, Pater perpetue 
venerande, tu Domine Deus meus coelestis medicus animarum”, 
and “Deus meus misericordiarum Pater”. 





NOTES TO CHAPTER VI 


1. M. Luther, Letter of recommendation for Gansfort’s let- 
ters, in: W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 854; the translation is found in: 
E. W. Miller and J. W. Scudder, Wessel Gansfort, vol. I, p. 232. 
— M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, p. 233. 

2. The “parva domus” was for boys who paid for their 
lodging; see p. I09., 

3. M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, pp. 23-39, 45, XXXVIII. 

4. M. Schoengen, Narratio, p 156, “Cum ergo et ipse esset 
totus devotus et fervidus, et Rutgerus procurator devotissime 
de sero pro juvenibus faceret collationem adjuvit eum, et ex 
conflatione mutua inflammabant juvenes ad virtutes et ad odium 
viciorum”. 

M. Schoengen, Narratio, p. 157. 

See pp. 93, 120. 

De Im. Christi, bk. I, ch. III. 

M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, pp. 39-45. 
Ibid., pp. 45-78. 

1o. A. Hardenberg, Vita Wesseli, in: Gansfort’s Opera, p. X: 
“Itaque, utroque pede concessit in sententiam Nominalium, quos 
reperit aliquanto puriores, aut saltem subtiliores”. 

11. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 83. 

12. For all these facts see: M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 87-100. 

13. E. W. Miller and J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. I, p. 331. 

14. A. Hardenberg, Vita Wesseli, in: W. Gansfort, Opera, 
p. XII. — E. W. Miller and J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. II, 
p. 325. Some modern writers have refused to believe this story, 
but the arguments brought forward by them are insufficient, as 
according to several witnesses, parts of Wessel’s bible were seen 
at Groningen for more than a hundred years after his death. 
Cir. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 103-105. 

15. W. Gansfort, Scala Meditationis, bk. I, ch. XIII (Opera, 
p. 212): “Videmus Florentinos posse: Zvvollenses non posse. 
Mallem ego istorum ignaviam, quam illorum acumen; adeo non 
interest quo ingenio sis; verum quo consilio utatis et dirigas in 
finem. Volenti tamen in bonum dirigere, grande quidpiam est 


409 


ee 


410 NOTES 


exercitatos habere sensus, et potentes ad discretionem boni ac 
mali’. 

16. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 105-108. 

17. W. Gansfort, De Sacramento Poenitentia, Opera, pp. 782, 
788-789. — E. W. Miller and J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. II, 
pp. 206, 214. 

18. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 111. 

19. Ibid., pp. 111-122. Cfr. J. G. C. Joosting, Wessel Gans- 
fort lijfarts van bisschop David, pp. 123-124. 

20. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 122-132. 

21. Ibid., pp. 135-142, 154-155. 

22. W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 920-921. — E. W. Miller and 
J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. I, pp. 236-237. 

23. He probably became acquainted with some wandering 
Greeks and one or more Jews. 

24. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 64-68. 

25. bids. p07. 

26. \M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. XLII-XLV. — 

27. See ch. V, note 47. ; 

28. Wessel called his rapiarium “Mare magnum”. Many 
passages of his “De Causis Incarnationis” and his “De Magni- 
tudine Passionis Domini” had been taken by him out of his 
rapiarium, undoubtedly in the same manner that Thomas 4 
Kempis copied much of the “De Imitatione Christi” from his 
rapiarium. The “Mare Magnum” of Wessel was lost together 
with some other works of his, due to the work of the Domin- 
icans, who destroyed all the writings by Gansfort they could 
get hold of (see: M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. L). The following 
works were lost: 1. Liber notularum de scripturis sacris et variis 
scripturarum locis; de creaturis; de angelis; de daemonibus; 
de anima. 2. Liber alius magnus de dignitate et potestate 
ecclesiastica; de indulgentiis. 3. Libellus pro Nominalibus. 4. De 
triduo Christi in sepulcro pro Paulo Burgensi Contra Middeli- 
burgensem. 5. Duo libelli practici in medicina. 6. Mare Magnum. 
7. Liber de futuro seculo. 8. Some letters (see: M. van Rhijn, 
Gansfort, pp. LII-LIII). 

29. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. XXXI. — E. W. Miller and J. W. 
Scudder, Gansfort, vol. I, p. 333. 


30. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 720. — E. W. Miller and J. W. ; 


Scudder, Gansfort, vol. II, pp. 87-80. 
31. G. Geldenhauer, Wesseli Gansfortii Frisii vita, in: W. 


a wi 5 


NOTES 411 


Gansfort, Opera, pp. XXVIII-XXIX. — E. W. Miller and 
J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. II, p. 345. 

32. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 722, p. 830. — E. W. Miller and 
J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. II, p. 90, pp. 282-283. 

33. Ibid., p. 830 (vol. II, p. 283). 

34. Ibid., pp. 676, 677, 699 (vol. II, pp. 28, 29-30, 60). 

35. Ibid., p. 697 €vol. II, p. 57). 

36. Ibid., p. 711: “Ex hoc jam facile liquet verbum Platonis, 
volentis naturam nihil aliud esse quam voluntatem Dei regular- 
iter volentem; et miraculum opus divinae voluntatis non regul- 
ariter ita volentis” (Scudder’s transl., vol. II, p. 75). 

37. Ibid., p. 716 (transl., vol. II, pp. 81-82). 

Aor DIG... P. 7130 (Vols LIE p,..7795 

39. W. Gansfort, De Magnitudine Passionis, ch. XLV 
(Opera, p. 550): “Quomodo non adversum dicunt Paulus, 
adserens, sola fide, sine operibus justificare credentes in 
Christum per ejus improperium; et Iacobus, dicens fidem sine 
operibus mortuam........ Diversum dicunt Apostolus Paulus 
et Iacobus; verum non adversum. Communis utrique sententia 
est: Iustum ex fide vivere; fide, inquam, per dilectionem 
operante. Operibus enim vitae corpus docetur, quas nisi exercet 
mortuum judicatur. Et si nullas vitales actiones exerceret in 
corpore, uti sunt, halites et pulsus, et praecordiorum calor, 
prorsus mortuum haberetur. His actionibus vivere judicatur: 
non tamen his actionibus vivit, sed harum actionum fonte vivit, 
anima videlicet”. 

40. Ibid., ch. XX (p. 493): “Hunc voluit ex obedientia im- 
positi mandati adstruere, quemadmodum ipse discipulis in caena 
pridem dixerat: ‘Si me diligitis, mandata mea servate’. Quasi 
dicat: Vestrae dilectionis argumenta erunt servata mea mandata, 
et mensura servati mandati argumentum erit mensturans dilec- 
tionem”. — De Providentia Dei (p. 713): “In majoribus 
ergo salutis operibus operanti Deo credentes cooperantur, et 
in hoc secula credendo, spectando, amando, ut verae coopera- 
tiones Deo simus; et in illa cooperatione Deus facit nos 
cooperari; qui sine eo nihil possumus, et omnia possumus in eo 
confortante nos” (based on John XIV, v. 12). — Scalae Medi- 
tationis liber IV, ch. XIX (p. 203): “Dominus Iesus amicos 
diffinit, quibus omnia revelavit maxima sua bona” (in: John XV, 
v. 15). — De Sacramento Eucharistiae, ch. IX (pp. 676-677): 
“Neque formidet, qui sic manducat carnem Filii hominis, mortem 


412 NOTES 


interioris hominis; quoniam vita illius hominis (quae vero 
Spiritus et vita est, ac tertia in Trinitate persona ac per hoc 
Deus aeternum) non sit ‘volentis aut currentis hominis’, quia 
Patris et Filii unus Spiritus est”. 

41. Ibid., pp. 732-733, 746-747, 548-549 (transl., vol. II, pp. 
105-106, 142-145). The last propositions are based on Paul. 

42. Ibid., p. 868 (transl., vol. I, p. 271). 

43. See p. 30. 

44. W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 800-891, 772. — E. W. Miller and 
J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. I, pp. 302-303; vol. II, pp. 187-189 
(duplicate of vol. I, pp. 302-303), 193. 

45. Ibid., pp. 773, 775-776 (Scudder’s transl., vol. II, pp. 194, 
197). 

46. See p. 29. 

47. W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 748-749 (translation, vol. II, 
Pp. 152-153). 

48. Ibid., p. 751 (transl. vol. II, p. 156). 

49. Ibid., p. 780-(transl., vol. II, p. 204). 

50. “Miror autem, quae infelicitas obsteterit, quo minus in 
publico Christianissimus hic auctor versetur: nisi in causa fuerit, 
quod sine bello et sanguine vixerit, quia una re mihi dissimilis 
est; aut metus Judaeorum nostrorum eum oppresserit, qui suis 
impiis inquisitionibus in hoc nati videntur, ut optimos quosque 
libros faciant haereticos, quo suos Aristotelicos et plus quam 
haereticos nobis statuant Christianos, quorum finis Deo vindice 
jam desinit in confusionem”. (Luther’s letter of recommendation, 
in: Gansfort, Opera, p. 854). 

51. Ibid., p. 921 (transl., vol. I, p. 237). 

52. Ibid., p. 886: “Doctores antiqui nihil expresse scripserunt; 
quia talis abusus nondum temporibus Augustini, Ambrosii, 
Hieronymi, Gregorii irrepsat”. 

53. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 257-262. 

54. See: M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 233. The German writer 
is O. Clemen. Cfr. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 233. 

55. E. Barnikol, Luther in Magdeburg, pp. 3-15. 

56. Vatican Library, Ms. no. 4927; Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, 
Mss. nos. 4923, 13708, 15262; University Library, Innsbruck, 
Ms. no. 660. 

57. D. J. M. Wiistenhoff, Het Traktaat “De pretiosis vesti- 
bus”, pp. 16-17. This library is now called Preussische Staats- 





NOTES 413 


bibliothek, and the manuscript is no. 240 (quarto, theol. lat.). 
On fol. 18 we read: “Liber sancti Petri in Erfordia”,. 

58. He refers to the “Spiritual Ascensions’”’ by Gerard Zerbolt. 

59. M. Luther, Dictata super Psalterium (1513-1516); in his 
Werke, Weimar ed., vol. III, p. 648: “Unde est quidam tractatus 
super istu versu Gerardi Zutphaniensis’’. 

60. Ibid., p. 380: “Et sic idem opus vel totum corpus potest 
esse omnia sacrificia, ut Roset. [Basel 1504], fol. 155. 

61. E. W. Miller and J. W. Scudder, Gansfort, vol. I, p. 130. 

62. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 892 (itransl., vol. I, pp. 304-305; 
vol. II, p. 190). 

63. G. Groote, Epistolae (Paris manuscript), fol. 614: “Unde 
Abacuc III: ‘Iustus ex fide vivit’”. 

64. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 553. — E. W. Miller and J. W. 
Scudder, Gansfort, vol. I, p. 131. The quotation is from the 
De Magnitudine Passionis, ch. XLVI. 

65. M. van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, p. 232: “Volgens Wessel 
is de menschelijke wil vrij’. 

66. Bk. III, ch. LVIII. 

67. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 713, p. 714 (transl., vol. II, 
p. 78, p. 80). 

68. See p. 135. 

69. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 73. — H. Hermelink, Theol. 
Fakultat Tirbingen, pp. 80, 195, 200. 

70. R. H. Murray, Erasmus and Luther, London and New 
York 1920, p. 40. 

71. W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 779-780 (translation, vol. II, 
pp. 202-203). Cfr. M. Luther, Assertio omnium articulorum per 
Bullam Leonis V, 1520, in his Werke, Weimar ed., vol. VII, 
p. 127: “Romanus pontifex, Petri successor, non est Christi 
vicarius super omnes totius mundi Ecclesias ab ipso Christo in 
beato Petro institutus. Numquam enim fuit super omnes 
Ecclesias totius mundi Romanus pontifex........ Neque enim 
super Ecclesias Graeciae, Indiae, Persidis, Aegypti et Affricae 
unquam fuit neque adhuc est”. And Gansfort adds: “Dico item 
Latinorum fidelium, quia tot linguae fidelium ultra fontes Nili, 
trans Indum Hydaspen, et extra Gangen, quo Latina decreta 
perringere non possunt”. 

72. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 775 (transl., vol. II, p. 196). 

73. See pp. 309-326. 

74. P.S. Allen, Opus Ep. Erasmi, vol. I, p. 584..— Still we 


414_ NOTES 


are not at all certain about these dates. Erasmus probably was 
born in 1469, and left Deventer in 1483, according to H. Kronen- 
berg, Wanneer is Alexander Hegius te Deventer aangekomen? 
in: Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Vereeniging tot beoefening 
van Overijsselsch Recht en Geschiedenis, 2nd series, part 29, 
Deventer 1913, p. 6. 

75. See for example P. S. Allen, The Age of Erasmus, ch. I 
(pp. 7-32): The Adwert Academy. 

76. H. Brugmans, De kroniek van het klooster te Aduard, 
pp. 69-70. 

77. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, pp. 132-135. 

' 78. Erasmus’ remarks about the brethren, for example, are 
wholly misleading. See: P. Mestwerdt, Die Anfange des Eras- 
mus, pp. 182-195. 

79. M. Schoengen, Narratio, p. 254. 

80. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 141. 

81. J. 'Lindeboom, Bijbelsch Humanisme, p. 115. 

82. A. Tilley, Dawn of the French Renaissance, p. 291. 

83. P. Mestwerdt, Die Anfange des Erasmus, pp. 224-225. 

84. D. Erasmus, Opera, ed Le Clerc, vol. X, col. 1622: 
‘Doctor Wesselus multa habet cum Luthero communia, sed 
quanto Christianius ac modestius ille proponit sua dogmata 
quam istorum plerique faciunt’. 

85. D. Erasmus, Opera, vol. V, col. 56: “Nec alia est flamma, 
in qua cruciatur dives ille comessator Evangelicus, nec alia 
supplicia inferorum quam perpetua mentis anxietas, quae peccandi 
consuetudinem comitatur”. 

86. See p. 285. 

87. P. S. Allen, Opus Ep. Erasmi, vol. I, pp. 200-201. 

88. Fol. 7>-138. 

89. Fol. 13-19». 

90. Fol. 19>. Renaudet, in discussing the genesis of Erasmus’ 
mind, says: “Indifférents a la théologie et a la scolastique, aux 
querelles des réalistes. et des nominaux qui, 4 Paris comme a 
Cologne, 4 Bale comme a Vienne, mettaient aux prises ceux 
qu’on appelait les anciens et les modernes, l’acceptation muette 
de la parole du prétre, la froide pratique des sacraments et des 
oeuvres ne leur suffisaient pas. Ils lisaient le Nouveau Testa- 
ment, les Evangiles, les Epitres, les Péres qui avaient le mieux 
pénétré les secrets de la vie intérieure, saint Augustin et saint 
Bernard. Des maisons de la Vie-Commune et des couvents des 





NOTES A415 


chanoines, qu’unissait la méme pensée, étaient sortis d’innom- 
brables et prolixes ouvrages, inspirés de cette piété intime, 
contemplative et cependant agissante, qu’on appelait la dévotion 
moderne, et qui, dés les vingt premiéres années du XVe 
siécle, avait trouvé dans les quatre livres de l’Imitation son 
expression la plus efficace et la plus humaine”. (Erasme, pp. 
232-233). 

gt. Gabriel Byel, Tractatus de communi vita clericorum, in 
Ms. No. 75 Gs8, Royal Library, The Hiague, fol. 11-13, 

g2. See p. 205. 

93. R. H. Murray, Erasmus and Luther, p. 74. Cfr. P. Smith, 
Luther’s correspondence, vol. I, Philadelphia 1913, pp. 243-244 
(incomplete). 

94. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 876 (transl., vol. I, p. 286). 

95. R. H. Murray, Erasmus and Luther, p. 75. — P. Smith, 
Luther’s correspondence, p. 180, where we also read: “The more 
hateful to Christian ears is the name of heresy, the less rashly 
ought we to charge anyone with it. Every error is not heresy, 
nor is he forthwith a heretic who may displease this man or 


tha ty Ss The best part of Christianity is a life worthy of 
Christ. When this is found we ought not easily to suspect 
heresy”. 


96. From: R. H. Murray, Erasmus and Luther, p. 79. 
97.. Ibid., pp. 79-80. 


NOTES TO CHAPTER VII 


1. A. Renaudet, Préréforme et Humanisme a Paris (1494- 
1517), p. 174. — Jean Standonk, pp. 7-13. 

2. In a manuscript at Zwolle, the “Cartularium of the Heer 
Florenshuis and the new dormitory”, (copies are found of 
documents stating the amount and purposes of the donations. 
An extract from one of these reads as follows: “Van tyen mudde 
roggen uyt Vrouwenberch to Raelte in der buerscap van 


Lundertten gegeven ‘pauperibus in Nova Domo. Ic Seygher | 


van Rechteren ende van Voerst, in der tyt amptman in Sallandt, 
do kont ende bekenne mit desen openen brieve, dat vor my in 
enen ghehegeden gherichte ende gespannen banck ende vor 
gherichtes lude heer na bescreven, ghekomen sint Geert Kreync 
ende Wobbe syn echte wyf; ende Wobbe mit Geerde vors. 
alse wit horen echten man ende ghekoren momber, den sy koes 
mit mit hande ende mit monde ende oer in desen saken gegeven 
wart alse ordel ende recht wysde, ende hebben al daer vor my 
in den gherichte vor hen ende vor’ oere erfghen. mit oren 
gansen vrien willen overgheven ende geven mit desen selven 
breve vor een erflick testament vor oere beyder older sele 
slecht vanderhant den Armen Klerken ofte Schoellers to 
Deventer in dat Nye Fraterhuys tyen mudde guedes drughen 
claren wynter roggen iaerlik erfrenthen erfliken ende eweliken 
alse uyt onsen alingen erve en guede ter Vrouwenberch........ 
Ende heer sollen erflicken ende ewelike verwarers van wesen 
de priesters ter Florenshuys binnen Deventer ter behoef des 
huses ende der Armer Scoelers........ Gegeven in den iaer 
ons Heren Dusent veerhondert drie ende tachtentich op sunte 
Tohans avent Baptisten (fol. 8-9»). 

SrerOeO aD, FTES: 

4. See p. 90. 

5. Cele had earned a handsome fortune with his school at 
Zwolle, and the Brethren of the Common Life in that city were 


sO prosperous that their house became known as the’ “rich 


brethren-house”. 
6. A. Renaudet, Jean Standonk, p. 13. 
7. M. Godet, ‘La Congrégation de Montaigu, p. 4. 


416 


SS. hae 
tig “wag 
coat Soe 





NOTES 417 


8. A. Renaudet, Jean Standonk, pp. 14-22. 

on bids p~2i: 

10. See pp. 117-118. 

11. A. Renaudet, Jean Standonk, p. 21, note 3: “Durius 
ibidem invehebat contra concubinarios et alios notorios pec- 
catores”. Standonk probably knew the “Sermo contra focaristas” 
by Groote. 

12. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, p. 176, note 5. 

13. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 23-26. 

14. E. Barnikol, Luther in Magdeburg, p. 23: “Da stand da 
plotzlich der junge Luther, sah und sah mit weiten Augen auf 
das seltsame, auffallende Bild, auf den erbarmungswiirdigen 
mtiden Monch, dem alle bedeutungsvoll nachblickten, dessen 
Namen und Stand durch alle Reihen lief’. — Pp. 61-62: “Ja, 
dann ist es auch nicht zu ktihn, tiber Kohler und Scheel und 
deren Ansatze hinausgehend, zu vermuten, dass, als wenige 
Monate danach, bei Stotternheim an jenem 2. Juli 1507 der 
fordernde Gott seines Glaubens den jungen Martin im Blitz 
uberfiel, als ihm Angst und Not das Gelitbde auspressten: 
‘Hielff die liebe S. Anna, ich will ein Ménch werden!’, dass 
da dieses ihm als Ziel und Rettung vor Augen stehende 
Monchsbild die Erinnerungs- und Heiligkeitsziige des Magde- 
burger Moénches von der Breiten Strasse her getragen hat’. 

15. A. Renaudet, Jean Standonk, pp. 26-27. — 

16. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, pp. 178-182. 

17. Ibid., p. 179, note 8. 

18. M. Godet, La Congrégation de Montaigu, p. 10, note 3: 
““Insuper, certis temporibus, capitulum eis tenebatur, cum 
sermone aliquo de contemptu mundi, de virtutibus, de fructu 
_religionis praemisso, deinde sequibatur proclamatio et correctio 
erratorum’. Standonck empruntait ces pratiques particuliéres 
a ses maitres, les Fréres de la Vie commune”. 

19. Ibid., page 11, note 1: “Omnium animos inflammabat ad 
Christi amorem ac aemulationem virtutum, quoniam tempore 
videri poterat, quia quasi greges caprarum festinantium ad 
lavatrum cunctatim studentes ad religionem convolare non 
tantum ex ejus paedagogio verum ex aliis, tam magistri quam 
studentes, tanquam patrem piissimum quaerebant, quos laet- 
issimo blandoque vultu suscipiebat, eos instruens de regno 
Deo et de justitia ejus”. 

20.07 Ibid! spearr 


418 NOTES 


21. Ibid., pp. 11-16. 

22. Ibid., pp. 23-25. Several extracts from this rule are 
published on pp. 144-145, 146, 146-151, 153-154, 160, 166. 

23. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 56-63. ev 

24. M. Godet, La Congrégation de Montaigu, pp. 29-31, pp. 
109-130. 

25. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, pp. 196-198, 311-312. 

26. M. Godet, La Congr. de Mont., pp. 31-32. 

27. Ibid., pp. 32-38, 197-199, 208-209. 

28. Ibid., pp. 39-40. 

29. Ibid., pp. 43-44. On pp. 198-197 of the same work is 
published the act by which the brethren of Ghent secured the 
management of the institution at Cambray. It is a very im- 
portant domument, showing that: (1) The brethren at Ghent 
and Brussels taught school: “Considerantes quam utile, nec- 
essarium, quamque laudabile sit sensus hominum ab adolescentia 
sua ad malum nedum pronos verum etiam a sua natura inertes 
penitus et inscios dirigi facere et instrui ad morum probitatem 
et litterarum scientiam, providaque attentione attendentes quan- 
tum Gandavi, Bruxelle necnon in diversis aliis partibus fructum 
afferat tam in scientiarum instructione, quam etiam in bonorum 
ac proborum morum diligenti scolarium in formatione -ac 
virtutum plantatione’. (2) The brethren consciously and con- 
scientiously strove to imitate the primitive church: “........ 
laudabilis honesta et exemplaris vita conversatio ac residentia 
fratrum quorundam, tam presbyterorum quam clericorum et 
aliorum de communi vita seu in communi viventium, secundum 
institutionem primitive ecclesie, qui sub evangelicis ac sanctorum 
PavH IN seve cas preceptis et salutaribus monitus ...... viventes”’. 
(3) They preferred to see their pupils enter the ranks of the 
clergy, not only regular, but both: “........ ut exinde unde- 
cumque monasteria et loca ecclesiastica felicia admodum incre- 
menta ...... susceperunt”. (4) The brethren at Ghent were 
going to found a brethren-house at Cambray: “........ vocare 
ad nos decrevimus fratrem Jacobum pro tempore Rectorem 
domus fratrum ...... in Gandavio ...... ab eodem expetendo 
quatenus de suis fratribus mittere vellet in loco eisdem design- 
ando ...... tandem ...... ex suis adducere decrevit nonnullos 
viros probos, presbyteros et clericos, ex sua prefata domo 
Gandensi”. (5) They were to conduct school there: “Et primo 
quod dicti fratres et eorum stccessores non poterunt eandem 





a! 
ae Sa 


NOTES ALO 


domum ypotecare vel obligare ...... quam ad dictas scolas 
tenendas applicare vel convertere ...... Item possit idem 
Rector per se et suos substitutos in forma qua supra audire 
confessiones scolarium in civitate Cameracensis vel foris manen- 
tium, scolas dictorum fratrum frequentantium”. (6) The Brethren 
of the Common Life at Cambray were permitted to preach 
simple sermons on Sundays and holidays: “Item possint fratres 
dicte domus omnibus ipsorum scolaribus aut intus vel foris 
manentibus ac etiam aliis secularibus ...... domonicis et festivis 
aieDuse wean: facere collationem non quidem per modum 
solemnis predicationis sed simplicis exhortationis”. 

30. It is indeed very interesting to note in this connection 
that the first written constitution, or in other words, the original 
constitution of the first brethren-house mentions the names of 
only two daughter institutions: the one at Delft, founded by the 
Deventer house, and the one at Gouda, founded by the brethren 
of Delft. 

31. M. Godet, La Congr. de Mont., p. 45. 

32. Ibid., p. 45: “Leurs écoles étaient les séminaires ou se 
CeCrittaien. ten ae as comme plus tard 4 Montaigu ...... les ordres 
mendiants’’. 

33. M. Godet, Montaigu, pp. 45-47. 

34. Th. a Kempis, Chronicon Montis Sanctae Agnetis, ch. 
X XIX (ed. H. Rosweyden, p. 130). 

35. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 40-42. 

36. J. Mombaer, Venatorium Sanctorum ordinis Canonici, 
in Ms. no. 14662 Bibl. Nat., Paris, fol. 1624: “Et frater Thomas 
Kempis in Monte dive Agnetis ...... Composuit libellum Qui 
sequitur me, quem falso quidam domino Gerson attribuunt”, 

37. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 42-45. 

38. Ibid., pp. 45-47. 

39. P. C. Molhuysen, Cornelius Aurelius. Korte schets van 
zijn leven en werken, in: Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerk- 
geschiedenis (1902), pp. I-35. — Cornelius Aurelius. Nieuwe 
bescheiden, in: Ned. Arch. v. Kerkgesch. (1905), pp. 54-73. — 
P. §. Allen, Erasmi Epistolae, vol. I, pp. 92-122, 135-136, 143, 
205, 586-687, 610. 

40. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 47-51. — Erasme (I), pp. 
242-244. 

41. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 51-53. 

42. P. S. Allen, Erasmi Epistolae, vol. I, pp. 200-201: “Con- 


420 NOTES 


sultationem nobis iniunctam Domino Praesidenti de Hacqueville 
dudum dedimus in praesentia Domini de Emery ...... Rever- 
endum magistrum nostrum Standonck saepius commonui ut de 
his et aliis iniunctis vos certos efficeret, praesertim quid patribus 
scribendum putaret; quod et fecit. Expectavimus et adhuc 
expectamus reverendum in Christo patrem vestrum, quem 
admonendum et adhortandum diligenter curabimus per amicos 
vestros, viros utique gravissimos”. 

43. A. Renaudet, Standonk, pp. 53-55, 75-77. — Préretonnes 


Pp. 338-341, 446-452. 


44. J. Mombaer, Rosetum, prologue: “Exercitabar et scope- 


bam a Hierusale et in Hiericho de lapsum originali iusticia, 
dignitate, puritate spoliatum resculpere, reformare atque in 
priorem restituere gradum opere precium erit purgativis primum 
exercitiis exemplo clarissimi prophete David a viciis et corruptis 
affectibus eundem spiritum scopere, purgare, castigare”’. 

45. W. Gansfort, De. Providentia Dei, in: Opera, p. 716 
(translation, vol. II, pp. 82-83). . 

46. J. Mombaer, Rosetum (Zwolle 1494), fol. 15: “Duo enim 
iuxta magistrum Gerardum Groot in exercitiis sunt praecavenda: 
nimia afflictio et occupatio immoderata”. | 

47. P. §. Allen, Erasmi epistolae, vol. I, p. 166. 

48. Fol. 59>-62». 

49. J. Mombaer, Rosetum, fol. 15: “Sit purus, spernens, 
fervens, moderatus ...... Concors, consultum, moderatum, 
congruat et stet”. Fol. 24: “Si vis fervere debes hec mente 
tenere: Dignus, fert, mandat, donavit multa, spospondit, hostes, 
iudicium, pene, mirabile, spectant’’. Fol. 2>: “Exemplum scrip- 
tum, mala, peccatum, rea, stultum”. Fol. 38: “Ordo, locus, 
tempus, soOcius, provisio, votum”’,. 

50. Ibid., fol. 108: “Labor autem rusticanus vel labor messis 
non est respuendus a _ religioso, sed devote amplexandus, 
quemadmodum docet Magister Gherardus Groot super illo verbo 
Eccles. VII°: ‘Non oderis opera laboriosa et rusticitatem a Deo 
¢creatam’, dicens: ‘Generosos animos labor nutrit’” 

51. Watrigant has shown that Mombaer copies total Zerbolt. 

52. P. §. Allen, Erasmi epistolae, vol. I, p. 166. 

53. A. Renaudet, Standonk, p. 44. Since the leaders were so 
fond of the work, we may safely infer that a considerable 
number of their followers also studied it. Moreover, it was 
printed at Paris in 1510. 








NOTES 421 


54. A. Renaudet, Erasme (I), pp. 232-233. 

55. A. Tilley, Dawn of the French Ren., p. 242. : 

56. Statuten der Bursa Cusana zu Deventer, in: J. Marx, 
Nikolaus von Cues, pp. 241-243. While all the early sources 
inform us that Cusa was educated at Deventer, they do not tell 
why he went there. It seems that he had been influenced by the 
monks of the Carthusian monastery near Coblenz, whom Groote 
had befriended, and to whom Cusa later entrusted the super- 
vision of the dormitory at Deventer. See: G. Groote, Epistolae 
(Hague m.s.), fol. 1224: “Pulcher lapis Hermannus, pulcrumque 
monasterium Confluencie, pulcriorque tota cartusia sancta 
religio”. Groote had lived in a Carthusian monastery himself, 
and later wrote a letter of recommendation for Radewijns to 
the Carthusian monks of Coblenz. 

57. See pp. 102, 230. 

58. Fol. 84: “Ideo nullem est iudicium humanum certum de 
membris ecclesiae”. 

59. See p. 30. Cusa wrote: “Unde sicut ecclesia universalis 


‘est corpus Christi mysticum” (fol. 108). 


60. Fol. 132. 
61. Fol. 23: “Sed scimus quod Petrus nihil plus potestatis 
a Christo .recepit aliis apostolis........ Et quamquam Petro 


dictum est: ‘Tu es Petrus et super hance petram’, tamen per 
petram Christum quem confessus est intelligimus, et si Petrus 
per petram tanquam lapis fundamenti ecclesiae intelligi deberet: 
tunc secundum sanctum Hieronymum ita similiter alii apostoli 
fuerunt lapides fundamenti ecclesiae........ Et si Petro dictum 
est: ‘Pasce oves’, tamen manifestum est quod illa pascentia est 
verbo et exemplo. Ideo recte dicimus omnes apostolos in 
potestate cum Petro aequales”’. Fol. 254: “Papa non est univers- 
alis episcopus sed super alios primus”. 

62. Book III commences with the mystical body of Christ, 
and mentions various subjects of little importance for us, though 
all connected with the reform of the church. In vol. II of the 
Opera we find various works, some on theological, some-~on 
mathematical subjects. In part of these Cusa expresses his 
philosophical views, which transcended the worldly wisdom of 
Groote’s disciples at Deventer. This is particularly true of 
book I of the Exercitationum libri X, in which he quotes chiefly 
from Plato, Procul, Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus. Never- 
theless, even in this book he devotes most of his attention to 


422 NOTES 


theology (fol. 11>-218, and partly on fol. 74-114), while the other 
nine deal almost entirely with theological subjects. Some of 
the things he says remind us of Groote’s disciples: “Homo 
huius saeculi ad hunc finem ut habeat divitias vitae temporales 

Filii lucis seu aeternitatis: pro aeterna vita adipiscenda 
non habent talem prudentiam aliquo modo” (fol. 234). “Quando 
in nobis loquitur Christus sive sapientia: tunc illa loquitur in 
ratione nostra. Nam Christus est sapientia et ratio infinita. 
Praecepta rationis sunt praecepta aeterna legis, quae est sapientia 
patris’ (fol. 242). “Nisi Christus ostendat se: est invisibilis, 
corpus eius qui de morte ad vitam resurrexit: est eo modo 
spirituale quod nisi seipsum ostendat et revelet sive cognitioni 
sensibili ingerat non sentitur” (fol. 1334). “Doctrina illa Christi 
Domini nostri non consistit in verbo sed in imitatione. Si quis 
enim jsciret omnia evangelia mente: non esset propterea per- 
fectus, sed requiritur quod per imitationem induat forman filii 
Dei [fol. 174>; cfr. De im. Chr., bk. I, ch. I: “Qui sequitur me 


non ambulat in tenebris ...... Si scires totam bibliam exterius 
et .omnium philosophorum dicta, quid totum prodesset sine 
caritate Dei et gratia?] ...... “Vivit vero in me Christus. Nam 


vitiis per vivam hostiam extirpatis” (fol. 1758). Cusa was 
opposed to the acceptance of money for indulgences: “Dum 
essem legatus et ponerem confessores: primo non bene attendens 
ad hoc evangelium inhibui confessoribus ne pecuniam sumerent 
Aa 6s 302 Demum mandavi confitentibus ne quicquam darent: 
alioqui non absolverentur et profeci’ (Excitationum Liber V, 
fol. 784). 

63. N. Cusa, Excitationum liber VI, fol. 984: “Omnis peccator 
servus est peccati. Servus autem: seipsum a servitute liberare 
et haeredem facere nequit. Sed si opera legi et facta iustific- 
arent: tunc posset per facta seipsum iustificare. Hoc autem 
impossiblie est: immo contradictio”’. 

64. ‘A. Renaudet, Préréforme, p. 597. 

65. Ibid., p. 600. 

66. Ibid., pp. 600, 603, 621. — A. Tilley, Dawn of the French 
Ren., p. 243. 

67. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, p. 622: “Loin de le blamer 
d’ avoir écrit en flamand, il affrme qu'un lettré peut composer 
en langue vulgaire des ouvrages précieux. Peut-étre en 1510, 
a Cologne, chez les Fréres de la Vie Commune, avait-il compris 
l’ efficacité des livres de propagande, rédigés, selon la 


ae. 





Oe Rees ee Oe at Oe a ae 


NOTES 423 


pensée de Gérard Groote, pour |’ édification des simples. Et 
déja Lefévre commengait a regretter que les fidéles ne pussent 
comprendre les priéres latines du culte catholique, I’ Evangile 
ou | Epitre dont le prétre, a la messe, récite le texte 
mystérieux”. 

68. <A. Tilley, Dawn of French Ren., pp. 591-592. 

GO. Ubida- ps 503. 

70. Ibid., p. 230. Cfr. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, p. 400. 

71. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, p. 409. 

72. See pp. 61-62. 

73. “Neque ob shoc aspernemini quam eruditionis bonae 
pleniores ipsi edere potestis”. See: A. Roersch, L’humanisme 
belge, p. 13. 

74. P. H. Watrigant, S. J.. La genése des Exercitia Spirit- 
ualia, p. 29. 

Pca iden Dse"30. 

76. Ibid., pp. 56-57, 59. 

77. Ibid., p. 58; p. 54: “On peut dire que presque toutes les 
directions pratiques, presque tout ce qui se rapporte a la méthode 
générale des exercices spirituels, dans les deux traités de Il’ abbé 
de Montserrat, est extrait du Rosetum”. 

78. Ibid., pp. 28-44. — H. Bohmer, Studien, vol, I: Loyola, 
PP. 34-45. 

79. Ign. Loyola, Exercitia Spiritualia, ed. J. Roothaan, S. J., 
II. Hebdomada. De Incarnatione (p. 132): “Pro secunda 
hebdomada et ita deinceps, valde prodest legere subinde 
[aliquid] ex libris de Imitatione Christi vel Evangeliorum et 
vitarum Sanctorum”. 

80. Ibid., note 9: “Notandum, primo loco poni lectionem 
aliquam ex libris de Imitatione Christi; haec enim planior, 
facilior, neque talis, quae mentem avertere a praecipuo con- 
templationum argumento posset, sed potius ad practicas con- 
clusiones inter meditandum conceptas magis confirmandas 
aptissima est” (this note is by Roothaan). 

81. H. Bohmer, Studien, vol. I, p. 46. 

S2cei bid.) p:. 47: 

83. Ibid., p. 64: “Sein originellstes Werk, die exercitia 
spiritualia, ist im Grunde nur eine letzte Frucht der ‘devotio 
moderna’”’. 

84. P. H. Watrigant, S. J., La genése des Exercitia Spiri- 
tualia, p. 59. Cfr. M. Godet, La Congrégation de Montaigu, 


424 NOTES 


p. 93: “Mais les véritables précurseurs des ‘Exercises’ se trouvent 
au XIVe et XVe siécle dans les Pays-Bas. Ce sont les écrivains 
mystiques de 1’ école de Windesheim, les Fréres de la Vie 
Commune, Gérard Groote, Florent Radjevins, Jean Mombaer 
et surtout Gérard de Zutphen”. — H. Bohmer, Studien, vol. I, 
p. 64, note 1, Gothein in his Ignatius von Loyola (Halle 1895) 
gives a long account of Spanish mysticism of which Loyola 
was a sort of representative and missionary, according to this 
writer. His whole story has been ably criticized by Bohmer 
(p. 64, note 2). 

85. M. Godet, Montaigu, pp. 98-99: “La bibliothéque mystique 
formée par Standonck en 1499 contenait, sans contredit, les 
oeuvres de 1’ école de Windesheim”. 

86. Ibid., p. 99. 

87. See p. 228. 

88. M. Godet, Montaigu, pp. 103-106. 

89. P. H. Watrigant, La genése, pp. 103-106. 

90. Quoted in M. Godet, Montaigu, p. 106, note 1: ‘“Fratrum 
porro exemplo, Societas Jesu per orbem universum scholas 
aperit’’? 

gt. H. Bohmer, Studien, vol. I, pp. 150-157. 

92. See pp. 130-132. 

93. E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, vol. I, p. 78. 

04. Ibid., p. 81. 

95. Ibid., pp. 81-84. 

96. A. Renaudet, Préréforme, p. 623, note 4. 

O72, PuDIGs 1 pls O22: 

98. This is the De libris teutonicalibus, or An liceat libros 
divinos transferre in vulgare, which the present writer discovered 
at Nuremberg. . 

99. Ibid., pp. 87-111. 

100. Ibid., pp. 64-75, 125. 

tor. A. Lang, Die Bekehrung Johannes Calvins, pp. 5-37. 

102. EF. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, vol. I, pp. 331-336. 

103. G. Groote, Sermo super septem verba, fol. 258¢: “Unde 
in Iohanne querit cecus a Iudeis: ‘Num quid et vos vultis 
discipuli eius fieri’?? Et ipsi responderunt: ‘Tu discipulus illius 
sis, nos discipuli Moysi sumus’. Heu! quam plures discipulos 
habet Moyses quam Christus! Christus enim docet humilitatem 
et mansuetudinem, dicens: ‘Beati pauperes spiritu. Discite a me, 
quia mitis sum et humilis corde’ ”. 





NOTES 425 


104. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 761 (translation by Scudder, 
vol. II, p. 169). Fi 

105. See p. 322. 

106. A. Lang, Die Bekehrung Johannes Calvins, pp. 25-30. 

107. That is, till 1520. 

108. E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, vol. I, pp. 589-595. 

109. The first edition was a very small work, and contained 
no real Protestant beliefs. Calvin speaks of it as follows in the 
Preface of the edition of 1559: “In the first edition of this work, 
not expecting that success which the Lord ...... hath given, 
I handled the subject for the most part in a superficial manner, 
as is usual in small treatises”. 

110. See pp. 130-132. 

Ilr. See p. 218. 

112, A. Eekhof, De avondmaalsbrief van Cornelis Hoen, p. 
XV. The visit occurred in the house of Cratander the printer. 
“Tf Rode wishes that the works of Wessel be printed, Cratander 
will do so”, he writes to his friend Hedio: “Rodio Traiectensi 
parum hoc vesperi loquutus sum, cras ad prandium Cratandri 
VOCADO. 3.2: . Wesselum, si volet Rodius, imprimet Cratander”. 

113. G. Anrich, Martin Bucer, p. 47. 

114. He had been taught by Erasmus, according to Melanch- 
ton (Ph. Melanchton, Opera, in: Corpus Reformatorum, vol. IV, 
col. 970); and Erasmus derived some of the new views from 
Gansfort. However, Zwingli and Melanchton exaggerated the 
influence of Erasmus in this respect. Erasmus never accepted 
the symbolical interpretation. See: J. Lindeboom, De Theologie 
van Erasmus, Leiden 1909, pp. 137-146. The present writer also 
received some very helpful suggestions from Professor Preserved 
Smith, the author of a biography of Erasmus (New York 1923). 
Professor Smith discusses the subject very ably on pp. 378ff. of 
his new book, 

115. A. Eekhof, De avondmaalsbrief van Cornelis Hoen, p. 
XVI. On Octobét 23, 1525, Zwingli wrote to Bugenhagen: 
Ibi dei munere factum est, ut duo quidam et pii et docti homines, 
quorum etiamnum tacebo nomina, ad Leonum nostrum et me, 
conferendi de hoc argumento causa venirent; cumque nostrani 
hac in re sententiam audirent, gratias egerunt Deo, suam enim 
ipse celabant, quod tum non erat tutum cuique communicare, 
quod in hac re sentires, ac epistolam istam cuiusdam et docti et 
pii Batavi, quae iam excusa est anonyma, soluta sarcina commun- 


426 NOTES 


icarunt. In ea foelicem hance margaritam ‘Est’ pro ‘significat’ hic 
accipi inveni. Cumque hanc sententiam cogeremur in Commen- 
tario palam exponere, consultius videbatur, ipsam vocem, in qua 
tropus latet, adperire sua ista clave, quam solummodo dicere: 
Tropus est. Sic igitur docuimus, ‘est’ pro ‘symbolum est, figura 
est, significat’ hic positum esse; neque nos piget huius exposi- 
tionis. Sexcenties enim dicas: Tropus est, nec tropum adperias, 
infractam nucem puero praebueris’. 

116. A. Lang, Johannes Calvin. Ein Lebensbild, p. 57. 

117. A. Lang. Der Evangelienkommentar Martin Butzers, 
p. 14. 

TLOote Did... Di. 

119. Ibid., pp. 365-366, 372. 

120. N. Weiss, Guillaume Farel, p. 197. 

f2t. ibid. p. ‘70. . 

122. Ibid., p. 196. — ‘Le premier traité protestant en langue 
francaise, pp. 71, 73, 76. — A. Lang, Johannes Calvin, p. 57: 
“Butzer, das Haupt der oberdeutschen Theologen, der Ver- 
mittler der Wittenberger Konkordie und Freund des Landgrafen 
Philipp, war neben Melanchton der Fuhrer der Protestanten: 
er zog Calvin hinter sich her”. 

123. G. Amnrich, Martin Bucer, p. 143. 

124. Ch. Schmidt, Histoire littéraire de 1’ Alsace, vol.:I, p. 4 

125. L. Kiuckelhahn, J. Sturm, Strassburgs erster Schul- 
rektor, p. 23. 

126. Ibid., pp. 9-14. — W. Sohm, Die Schule Johann Sturms, 
pp. 26-27. 

127. See notes 126 and 130. 

128. W. Sohm, Die Schule Johann Sturms, p. 29. 

F200 o! Did: = pes: 

130. Consilium Joannis Sturmii curatoribus scholarum Ar- 
gentorati propositum: “Itaque nisi multitudo tanta sit, ut locus 
unus non satis sit, utilius est coacta esse quam’ dissipata studia. 
Leodii, Daventriae, Zwollae, Vuasaliae literarum exercitationes 
habent, eisque unum assignatum locum, distributum suis ordin- 
ibus, atque ex illis ludis feliciora et plura plerumque prodeunt 
ingenia quam ex vicinis, ut vocant, Academiis. Saepe fit ut 
qui ibi docte et pie informati sint, in illis artificum maiorum 
" gymnasiis corrumpantur ...... Leodii cum essem dissensio orta 
erat inter magistros, et quidam separatim docere instituerunt, 


‘ 
% 
J 





NOTES : 427 


quibus si sticcessissent consilia, perditum esset illud Hierony- 
mitanum Gymnasium”! 

131.. E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, vol. I, pp. 58-63. 

132. A. Lang, Johannes Calvin, p. 49: “An-der Spitze der 
Schule stand Johannes Sturm, geboren 1507 in Schleiden, nachst 
Melanchton zweifellos der bedeutendste evangelische Padagoge, 
der wie Mathurin Cordier aus dem Studium der Alten und aus 
der Schule der Briider des gemeinsamen Lebens neue und 
fruchtbare padagogische Grundsatze geschopft hatte”. 

133. F. Pijper, De invloed van de Broeders des Gemeenen 
Levens op de schoolstichting van Calvijn, pp. 116-117. 

134. Ibid., 118-120. The present writer had already mentioned 
most of the facts narrated above in chapters II and III; see pp. 
QI-97, 122-135. 

135. F. Pijper, De invloed, pp. 120-122. 

136. The whole book contains the “De duplici copia verbo- 
rum, ac rerum commentarii duo”, the “De ratione studii’, and 
some letters and poems. The “De ratione studii’ is found on 
Pp. 253-279. Here we read: “Nihil autem facilius discitur 
fp. 255] quam quod rectum ‘et verum est. At prava si semel 
inhaeserint ingenio, dictu mirum, quam non possint revelli. 
Primum igitur locum grammatica sibi vendicat, eaque protinus 
duplex tradendum pueris, Graeca videlicet, ac Latina. [p. 256] 
Ergo parata sermonis facultate, si non luxuriosa, certe casta, 
mos ad rerum intelligentiam conferendus est animus [p. 257] 
Nam unde nam haurias vel purius, vel citius, vel iucundius quam 
ab istis fontibus? [p. 260] Sed in primis ad fontes ipsos 
properandum, id est, Graecos et antiquos. Philosophiam optime 
docebit Plato et Aristoteles, atque huius discipulus, Theophras- 
tus, tum utrinque mixtus Plotinus. Ex theologis secundum 
divinas literas, nemo melius Origene, nemo subtilius, aut iucun- 
dius Chrysostomo, nemo sanctius Basilio, inter Latinos duo 
duntaxat insignes in hoc genere, Ambrosius mirus in allusionibus 
et Hieronymus in arcanis literis exercitatissimus. [p. 261] 
Eadem debet esse cura in arborum, herbarum, animantium, 
instrumentorum, vestium, gemmarum nominibus, in quibus, 
incredibile dictu, quam nihil intelligat literatorum vulgus. 
Horum noticia partim e diversis autoribus, quae de re rustica, 
de re militari, de arhitectura, de re culinaria, de gemnis, de 
plantis, de naturis animantium conscripserunt,  colligitur. 
[p. 263] Hine iam thematiis exerceri debent, quibus illud in 


428 NOTES 


primis cavendum, ne (quod fieri solet) aut sensu sint inepto, 
aut sermone insulso ...... quae tamen ab ingenio puerili non 
nimium abhorreat, ut interim aliud agentes, simul ex aliquid 
discant, in gravioribus studiis usui futurum”. _ 

137. F. Pijper, De invloed van de Broeders, pp. 123-126. 
Professor Pijper thinks that Sturm made an improvement on 
the method of the brethren by assembling all the pupils in 
one building. He evidently mistakes the dormitories at 
Deventer and Zwolle for the school of Hegius and Cele: 
“Hadden nog de Broeders des gemeenen levens de-klassen 
eener zelfde school soms in verschillende gebouwen van de 
stad ondergebracht, Sturmius toont aan, dat het noodzakelijk 
is ze alle in één gebouw te vergaderen” (p. 124). Almost all 
modern writers have confused the schools at Deventer and 
Zwolle with the different dormitories erected for the school 
boys in these two cities by the Brethren of the Common Life. 
Although one may speak of schools conducted by the brethren, 
particularly after 1500, it is not quite correct to call Cele’s 
school a “school of the Brethren of the Common Life”. 
Moreover, Sturm, instead of improving on Cele’s method, told 
his employers at Strasbourg that he wanted to imitate it, as 
was indicated above in the text. See also: K, Engel, Das 
Griindungsjiahr des Strassburger Gymnasiums, pp. 116-117. 

138. F. Pijper, De invloed van de Broeders, pp. 126-128. 
L. Kiickelhahn, J. Sturm, Strassburgs erster Schulrektor, pp. 
9-13, 74-75. 

139. Fr. Meyer, Der Ursprung des Jesuitischen Schulwesens, 


Pp. 54. 
140. See also: H. Veil, Zum Gedachtnis Johannes Sturms, 
pp. 38-60. 


141. E. Douwmergue, Jean Calvin, vol. II, p. 462. 


NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII 


1, C. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, vol. II, 
pp. 176-177. The originals are found in Luther’s Letters, edited 
by E. L. Enders, vol. IX, pp. 146-147; Erlangen ed., no. 386. 

2. Th. a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, appendix (the trans- 
lation is from J. P. Arthur’s ed., pp. 74-75). 

3. It should be noted, however, that Thomas compares the 
labors of Radewijns with those of Christ himself. 

4. Th. a Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. I-III (translation in 
Arthur’s ed., pp. 85, 87, 88). 

5. Scriptum, pp. 22-28, 31-33. 

6. Th. a Kempis, Vita Gerardi Sutph., § 1 (transl. in Arthur’s 
ed., p. 220). 

7. See for example: S. Kettlewell, The authorship of the De 
Imitatione Christi, pp. 11-20. 

8. H. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, vol. I, pp. 423-479. — 
H. Grisar, Luther, vol. I, pp. 146-212. See also: Review by Smith, 
of Strohl, L/Evolution religieuse de Luther jusqu’en 1515, in: 
American Hist. Rev., July 1922, p. 819. 

9. See: H. C. Vedder, The Reformation in Germany, p. 125. 
*— H. Wace and C. A. Buchheim, First principles of the 
Reformation, p. XXI: “In fact, it presents the most complete 
view of 'Luther’s theology, alike in its principles and in its 
practice, almost entirely disembarrassed of the controversial 
elements by which his other works, and especially those of a 
later date, were disturbed’. 

1o. M. Luther, Vorlesung tiber den Romerbrief, ed. J. Ficker, 
p. 144. 

11. It is printed in M. Schoengen, Jacobus Voecht narratio, 
PP. 501-503. 

12. D. J. M. Wistenhoff, Florentii parvum et simplex exerci- 
tium, p. 105. 

13. M. Luther, The Babylonish captivity, ed. H. Wace and 
C. A. Buchheim, pp. 155-156. The original: Weimar ed., vol. VI, 
p. 508. 

14.. H. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, vol. I, pp. 535-536. — 
H. Grisar, Luther, vol. I, pp. 112-113; p. 124, note 1. 


429 


430 NOTES 


15. H. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, vol. I, pp. 591-612. 
16. a; Pp. 211-215. 


yf . ‘Luther, The Babvisnish captivity, ed. H. Wace and 
Cl A; re. p. 141. The original: Weimar ed., vol. VI, 
Pp. 497. 


18. P. Smith, The life and letters of Martin Luther, p. 4. 

19. M. Van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, p. 231: “Gansfort heeft 
een geheel andere opvatting van den arbeid en bestrijdt. het 
monnikenwezen niet”’. 

20. W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 656-657 (transl. by J. W. 
Scudder, vol. I, pp. 243-245). 

21. See pp. 218-226. 

22. F. Radewijns, Tractatulus, p. 384. 

23. S. Kettlewell, The authorship of the De im. Christi, p. 34. 

24. G. Zerbolt, De spiritualibus ascensionibus, ch. III. 

25. H. Grisar, Luther, vol. I, p. 168. 

ZO SADId seep, el 70: 

27. See p. 314. 

28. H. Grisar, Luther, vol. I, pp. 172-179. 

29. Ibid., pp. 246-253. ; 

30. M. Luther, Address to the German nobility, pp. 58, 56 
(the original in Weimar ed., vol. VI, pp. 439, 438). ° 
_ 31. M. Luther, Concerning Christian liberty, pp. 110-111 
(Weimar ed., vol. VII, p. 25). 

32. C. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, vol. ij; 
p. 416; cfr. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 571. 

33. Ibid, p. 417. — Opera, p. 5509. 

34. Ibid., p. 485. — Opera, p. 750. 

35. Ibid., p. 579. 

36. M. Luther, Address to the German nobility, pp. 20-30 
(Weimar ed., vol. VI, pp. 406-415). — W. Gansfort, Opera, 
Pp. 771. 

37. See p. 313. Cfr. M. Luther, Address to German nob., 
pp. 31-49 (Weimar ed., pp. 415-432). 

38. M. Luther, Address to nob., pp. 58-50, 66 (Weimar ed, 
PP. 442, 447). — W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 772-773. 

39. See p. 201. — M. Luther, Address to nob., p. 78 (Weimar 
ed., p. 457). 

40. M. van Rhijn, Gansfort, p. 233. 

41. See p.-32r. 


NOTES A43t 


42. W. Gansfort, Opera, pp. 817, 819, 941 (transl. vol, II, 
pp. 260, 264, 299). 

43. See pp. 211-216. 

44. M. Luther, Concerning Christian liberty, pp. 126, 127 
(Weimar ed., p. 65). 

45. Cfr. H. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, vol. I, pp. 658-771. 

46. Quoted in: R. H. Murray, Erasmus and Luther, pp. 
204, 205. 

47. Ibid., pp. 291, 284. 

48. This quotation is from: C. Ullmann, Reformers before 
the Reformation, vol. I], pp. 519-521. 

49. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 703 (transl. by J. W. Scudder, 
pp. 67-68). 

50. He refers to the Dominicans who had attempted to 
destroy Gansfort’s works. 

51. C. Ullman, Reformers before the Reformation, vol. IT, 
pp. 580-581. 

KO DICE VOLE Lp. hb 20. 

53. H.C. Vedder, The Reformation in Germany, pp. 304-305. 

54. A. M. Hunter, The teaching of Calvin, p. 94. 

55. W. Gansfort, Opera, p. 714 (transl., vol. II, pp. 79-80). 

56. J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, vol. IV, 
New York 1870, p. 548. 

57. A. Egen, Der Einfluss der Mtinsterschen Domschule, 
pp. 16-18 7 

58. H. E. J. M. van der Velden, Rodolphus Agricola, pp. 
* 99-100, 206-207. 

59. M. Ch. A. Thudichum, Calvin als Padagoge, Geneva 
I9I5, p. 27. On p. 26 Thudichum makes this remark: “Das 
Gymnasium der Hieronymianer zu Liittich, das von den ‘Briidern 
des gemeinschaftlichen Lebens’ gefiihrt wurde, hatte die grosse 
Schulreform inauguriert”. 

60. See for example Dr. Kohler’s contribution in: Ulrich 
Zwingle. Zum Gediachtnis der Ztircher Reformation (1519-1919), 
Ziirich 1919. ; 

61. Edinburgh and London 1904. 

COPE een Ah 2: 

63. J. C. van Slee, Necrologium Diepenveen, p. 354. 

64. See: C. Burrage, The early English dissenters, 2 vols., 
Cambridge 1912. 

65.5 Ebid., vol..J,. p. °33! 


432 NOTES 


66. Ibid., p. 293. 

67;, <1 Did!) sD. 293, -a1. <I; 

68. A. F. Pollard, Thomas Cranmer, New York 1904, p. 272. 
— H. W. Clark, History of English eae yecit et vol. I, 
London IgiI, p. 135. 

69. N. Pocock, The restoration settlement of the English 
church, in: Engl. hist. review, vol. I, pp. 677-608. 

70. C. Burrage, 1. c., vol. I, p. 121. Nearly all the English 
Anabaptists in the Netherlands were converts of the Mennonites, 


followers of Menno Simons (1496-1561). A good biography of 


this reformer is: K. Vos, Menno Simons, Leiden 1914. 


APPENDIX A 
THE REFERENCES CITED BY GROOTE 


On page 17 a list is found of the writings to which Groote 
refers in his various works. This same list is given here again, 
provided with a number of notes. The references in question 
are the writings of Albert Magnus!, Ambrose?, Anselm’, An- 
tony*, Apuleius®, Aristides®, Aristotle7, Augustine’, Bede®, 
Bernard?°, Boethius!1, Bonaventural?, Cassianus1%, Cato!4, 
Chrysostom!5, Cicero1®, Climacus17, Cyprian18, Demosthenes?9, 
Diogenes?°, Dionysius?1, Eusebius22, Fabricius?3’, Francis of 
Assisi24, Gregory?5, Gregory of Nianza2*, Henry of Ghent?’, 
Hippocrates28, Isidor29, Jerome%®, Juvenal?!, Lucan3?2, Lyra, 
Nepos’4, Permenianus Donatista%5, Peter of Damiani**, Plato87, 
Pliny’8, Seneca?®, Socrates#°, Suetonius*!, Suso*?, Theophras- 
tus#8, Thomas Aquinas*4, Valerius*5, Vegetius**®, Virgil#7, and 
the Canon Law with many commentaries#§, 

1. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 55. 

2. G. Groote, De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 128. — Tractatus 
de matrimonio, p. 214. — Epistolae, ed. H. Nolte, p. 291. — 
Septem verba dominica, fol 263 c. 

3. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 75. 

4. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 180. — Epistolae, 
edaeX. dex kam) +p. 72. 

5. G. Groote, Sermo de paupertate, p. 463. 

6. G. Groote, De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 143. 

7. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, pp. 199, 211, 224, 230, 
236, 245. — De simonia, p. 8, p. 10. — Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, 
Pp. 35. 

8. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, Ist part, p. 366, 3rd 
part, pp. 7, 8, 17, 28, 38, 58, 77, 78, 79, 97. — Tractatus de matri- 
monio, pp. 167, 170, 171, 177. — De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 
130. — De simonia, pp. 14, 20, 24. — Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, 
p. 84; ed. H. Nolte, pp. 201, 292, etc. — Tractatus super septem 
verba dominca, fol. 2624, 263°, 265%, 2663, 266, 2688 — De 
nativitate Domini, fol. 113%, 117, 119°. 


9. G. Groote, De simonia, pp. 21, 22. — Epistolae, ed. W. 
Preger, p. 49. — Tractatus super septem verba dominica, fol. 
2678. 


10. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, pp. 13, 20, 
~ 433 


434 APPENDIX 


21, 22, 46, 56, 57, 58, 70; Ist part, pp. 373, 376. — Tractatus de 
matrimonio, pp. 164, 239. — Epistolae, ed. J. Clarisse, pp. 9, 23, 
25, 27. — Tractatus super septem verba dominica, fol. 112%, 1284, 
131». — De nativitate Domini, fol. 2644, 265¢, 2664->, 267>-c, 

11. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, Ist part, p. 368; 
3rd part, pp. 20, 30, 34. — Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 183, p. 208. 

12. G. Groote, De nativitate Domini, fol. 1122. 

13. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 194. 

14. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 170, — De loca- 
tione ecclesiarum, p. 143. 

15. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, pp. 30, 34, 
35. — Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 179. — De simonia, p. 22. 


16. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 237. 

17. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 75. 

18. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 104. 

19. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 246, 

20. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 213. 

21. G: Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 56. — De 
locatione ecclesiarum, p. 121. — Epistolae, ed. J. Clarisse, pp. 19, 


23, 24; ed. X. de Ram, p. 73. — De nativitate Domini, fol. 111, 
1274, 1298, 1302. 

22. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 47. 

23. G. Groote, De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 143. . 

24. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, Ist part, p. 378. — 
Tract. de matrimonio, p. IQI. 

25. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, pp. 7, 10, 


20. — Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 161. — De simonia, pp. 14, 
20, 25. — Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 72; ed. W. Preger, p. 51; 
ed. J. Clarisse, pp. 22, 25. — G. Groote, Tractatus super septem 


verba dominica, fol. 263>, 2643. 

26. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 230. 

27. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 42. ~ 

28. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 73; ed. W. Preger, 
p. 4I. 

29. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. H. Nolte, p. 291. 

30. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, pp. 9, 45, 
46, 55, 67, 68, 69, 78. — Tractatus de matrimonio, pp. 161, 202. — 
Epistolae, ed. J. Clarisse, p. 8; ed. W. Preger, p. 43. — De 
simonia, p. 22. — De nativitate Domini, fol. 131». — Tractatus 
de septem verba dominica, fol. 2668, 260>, 2614. 

31. G. Groote, Tractatus de septem verba dominica, fol. 2662. 


APPENDIX 435 


32. J. Clarisse, Over den geest en de denkwijze van Geert 
Groete, in: Archief voor Ned. Kerkgesch., vol. VIII, p. 368. 

33. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 43. 

34. J. H. Gerretsen, Florentius Radewijns, p. 40. 

35. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, pp. 73, 99. 

36. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. Iot. 

37. G. Groote, De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 143. 

38. J. H. Gerretsen, Florentius Radewijns, p. 40. 

39. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 218, p. 239, p. 240. 
— Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 7. — De locatione 
ecclesiarum, p. 143. — Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 81; ed. H. 
Nolte, p. 201. 

40. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 213, p. 236. — 
De locatione ecclesiarum, p. 143. 

41. G. Groote, Sermo de paupertate, p. 463. 

42. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. W. Preger, p. 35; ed. X. de 
Ram, ‘p. 106. 

. 43. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, pp. 170, 232, 244. 

44. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 54, p. 80. 
— Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 74. — De simonia, p. 4. 

45. G. Groote, Tractatus de matrimonio, p. 170. — De loca- 
tione ecclesiarum, p. I43. 

46. G. Groote, Epistolae, ed. X. de Ram, p. 71. 

47. G. Groote, Sermo contra focaristas, 3rd part, p. 50. 

48. J. Clarisse, Over den geest en de denkwijze van Geert 
Groete, in: Archief voor Ned. Kerkgsch., vol. III, pp. 60-84. 


APPENDIX B 
GROOTE’S LETTERS 


Since many of these letters have remained unpublished, and 
the others were edited mostly in a haphazard way, a list is given 
here, showing how many were published, and where they can 
be found. This list was prepared chiefly by Reverend Mr. A. 
Karthon, a Roman Catholic pastor at Heusden, Holland, with 
whom the author had the pleasure to become intimately 
acquainted. Mr. Karthon had intended to edit all of Groote’s 
unpublished works, but death claimed him _in the summer of 
1921. And although the author now has a copy of these _ un- 
printed works, it may take one or two years before they will 
appear in print. The following list, therefore, may prove help- 
‘ful to many readers. 


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440 APPENDIX 


APPENDIX C 


THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION OF THE BRETHREN 
OF THE COMMON LIFE AT DEVENTER ; 


This constitution is found in Ms. no. 73 G 22 of the Royal 
Library at the Hague. It may seem strange that no one has 
ever thought of examining it carefully. Schoengen calls it the 
constitution of a house founded by the brethren at Zwolle 
(M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. CXXVII, p. CXLIX), 
and suggests that the one found in Ms. no. 70 H 79 of the 
Royal Library at the Hague, which contains but a few brief 
and incomplete rules, was written and used by the brethren at 
Deventer (M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr., p. 59, note 3). But 
why should the men who founded all the other houses, either 
directly or indirectly, have had to be content with only a small 
fragment of the constitution in use at Zwolle, which had been 
copied after their own constitution, as Schoengen himself admits 
(M. Schoengen, Jac. Voecht narr. pp. CXXXIV—CXL)? 
Moreover, it is not very difficult to prove that Ms. no. 73 G 22, 
Royal ‘Library, The Hague, contains the constitution of the 
“Domus domini Florentii” at Deventer, for: (1) On fol. 43> we 
find that the brethren were to pray for their friends at Delft, 
where in 1403 a house had been founded by the “Domus domini 
Florentii’”. (2) The only other houses which could be expected 
to offer such prayers were those of Gouda and Utrecht, but 
on the same page of our manuscript the word Gouda was added 
in a later hand, while the house at Utrecht was founded as late 
as the year 1474, long after this constitution was written. (3) 
The prologue refers to Pierre d’Ailly’s letter of recognition, 
which was given in 1413, for in that same year the cardinal 
visited the Yssel valley as papal legate, and granted some 
privileges to the Sisters of the Common Life at Deventer; this 
letter of approbation encouraged them, they said, to draw up 
their rules in writing, as practised in their house before; in the 
cardinal’s letter of approbation only the houses of Deventer, 
Zwolle, and Miinster are mentioned by name, and even if they 
all had been enumerated there, only one of them would be 
found to have direct relationship with the house at Delft. (4) 
The brethren at Deventer prayed for their friends at Delft, 
simply because these friends were members of their own house. 





APPENDIX 441 


The rector of the brethren at Delft had been procurator of the 
“Nova domus” at Deventer (see: R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum 
p. 54). So close were the relations between Deventer and Delft 
that in 1458, when R. Dier de Muiden wrote his Scriptum, he 
said, in speaking of the house at Delft: “Cornelius is rector 
there” (see: R. Dier de Muiden, Scriptum, p. 55). No other 
houses were mentioned by name in the constitution, except the 
one at Delft, hence this constitution certainly could never have 
been drawn up in a daughter-institution of the house at Zwolle. 
(5) Of Petrus Horn, a member of the house at Deventer, we 
read that he never had to ask forgiveness for having fallen 
asleep beside his candle; our constitution explicitly demands 
the asking of forgiveness in such cases, which clause is not 
found in other constitutions known to us (see: G. Dumbar, 
Anal. Dav., vol. I, p. 152, and the constitution, fol. 474). 


{Q]juwoniam modus vivendi clericorum et presbiterorum sine 
propriis in communi, in castitate, et caritate mutua et-labore 
manuum Domino serviencium non dumtaxat a lege divina et 
humana approbatur, necnon per summos pontifices in extra- 
vagantibus variis est licenciatus; insuper et per provinciam 
Coloniensem per legatum sedis et apostolice ad provinciam 
Coloniensem et alias missum dominum Petrum de _ Elyaco, 
cardinalem. Cameracensem, auctoritate sedis apostolice et sue 
legacionis hic modus vivendi est confirmatus et approbatus; 
ymmo secundum iura omnes presbiteri deberent vivere in 
communi, ut patet in: “De vita et honestate clericorum”!, igitur 
aspirante Domino Ihesu et pia matre eius per intercessionem: 
beatissimi Iheronimi confessoris adiuvante, qualiter hic modus 
vivendi per bonas et sanctas consuetudines in moribus et 
disciplina servari debeat, est prosequendum et hic in scriptis 
redigendum, ne a memoria nostra sive suiccessorum nostrorum 
per oblivionem excidant vel per teporem dissuescant, sed 
frequenti renovacione ad custodiam discipline et bonorum 
morum accendant.. 

Cum enim secundum Augustinum bonum consistit in modo 
et specie et ordine, ut ait in libro “De Natura Boni’ [fol. 1>] 
CR ee ri etd wets est ordinare. Unumquodque naturam quantum 
habet de ordine, tantum habet de bonitate. Unde idem Au- 
gustinus in libro “De Opere Monachorum”: “Optima”, inquit, 
“est gubernacio, ut omnia suis temporibus distributa gerantur 
ex ordine, ne animum humanum turbilentis implicacionibus 
involuta perturbent”, Sicut eciam ait Hugo de Sancto Victore: 
“Virtus non alio modo apprehenditur, nisi disciplina virtutis 
non negligenter custodiatur’. Licet ergo non obligamus nos 


442 APPENDIX 


voto vel professione ad observanciam istarum consuetudinum 
vel alicuius religionis, non est tamen sine culpa in huiusmodi 
negligens vel inobediens inveniri, turbare pacem domesticam 
et Occasionem dare vite remissioris. ; 


De fundacione domus Capit. I 


[{D]Jomus hec nostra a quadam devota matrona ad hoc 
fundata et paucis redditibus et bonis parvis dotata est, ut ad 
exemplum ecclesie primitive devoti presbiteri et clerici cum 
nonnullis paucis laicis in ea vivant in communi de labore 
manuum, videlicet opere scripture, et de redditibus sive bonis 
ecclesiasticis vitam transigant mediocrem, prelatis suis reverenter 
obediant, humilem habitum et [fol. 24] simplicem statui tamen 
clericali competentem deferant, canones et decreta sanctorum 
patrum diligenter custodiant, virtutum et devocionum studiis 
sollerter insistant, et non solum irreprehensibiles, verum eciam- 
exemplares se aliis exhibeant, ut sic possint Deo gratum et 
acceptabile servicium exhibere, non solum de bona conversacione 
sua, sed eciam de aliorum quorum Deus corda per eorum 
monita et exempla conpungere dignabitur, conversione et salute. 
Quia igitur verus profectus vite spiritualis consistit in cordis 
puritate, qua neglecta frustra ad perfectionem nitimur, que 
est in caritate; sit igitur summum et quotidianum studium et 
excercicium mnostrum proficere in cordis puritate, ut videlicet 
primo omnium discamus nos ipsos cognoscere, vicia et passiones 
anime sine dissimulacione diiudicare et eas totis viribus niti 
extirpare, gulam domare, concupiscencias refrenare, superbiam 
deprimere, temporalia conte[m]pnere, proprias voluntates fran- 
gere, et alia quelibet vicia impugnancia expugnare, et inter 
hec pro veris virtutibus acquirendis summum studium adhibere, 
ut videlicet humilitatem, caritatem, castitatem, pacienciam, 
obedienciam, ac alias virtutes, in quibus beneplacitum est 
Domino Deo, possimus [fol. 2>] obtinere. Ista est verior et 
tucior via et modus proficiendi in vita spirituali, prout sancti 
patres determinaverunt, et habetur inde notabiliter in “Colla- 
cionibus— Patrum”, in prima collacione abbatis Moysi et in 
“Profectibus Religiosorum”, ubi dicitur de Caathitis, quos 
optimos iudicat de triplici genere religiosorum. Ad istum modum 
proficiendi debemus omnia nostra excercicia dirigere: oracionem, 
meditacionem, lectionem, opus manuum, vigilias, ieiunia, exer- 
citaciones, composicionem tam  interioris quam _  exterioris 
hominis, ut sic directa via ad caritatem Dei, ad gustum eterne 
sapiencie possimus pervenire. 


[De materiis meditandi] 


Quia vero timor Domini necessarius est proficere volentibus, 
— qui enim sine timore est non poterit iustificari, — idcirco 
expedit cuique nostrum indefesse ruminare.materias illas que 
provocant hominem ad timorem Dei, ut est materia de peccatis, — 
de morte, de iudicio, de inferno. Sed ne timor continuatus 
mentem deiectam et desperatam faciat, si non in spe divine 


APPENDIX 443 


misericordie respiret, [fol. 34] idcirco intermiscere expedit 
materias ad spem et amorem Dei provocantes, videlicet de 
regno celorum, de beneficiis divinis, de vita Ihesu Cristi et 
passione eius. Quas materias sic solemus dividere et alternare, 
ut meditemur sabbatis de peccatis, dominica die de regno 
celorum, feriis secundis de morte, feriis terciis de beneficiis 
Dei, feriis quartis de iudicio, feriis quintis de penis inferni, 
feriis sextis de passione Domini, de qua singulis feriis eciam 
infra missam convenit meditari, incipiendo a vita Domini 
dominica die, et consequenter singulis diebus aliquem passum 
passionis, prout habemus signatum. Circa festivitates vero 
precipuas conformamus nos ecclesie catholice, formando medita- 
ciones et exercicia nostra de materia festi. De hiis materiis pro 
innovacione memorie solemus aliquem punctum perlegere mane, 
vespere et de sero. 


De hora surgendi et preparacione ad oracionem 


De mane infra terciam et quartam media hora, quando non 
cantamus, ad signum excitacionis surgimus simul omnes per 
singulos dies ad matutinas, alacriter quidem et  vivaciter, 
excucientes [fol. 3>] sompnum ab oculis nostris iuxta illud 
Ieremie: ‘‘Consurge, lauda in nocte in principio vigiliarum 
tuarum, effunde sicut aquam cor tuum ante conspectum Domini, 
leva ad eum manus tuas”. Protunc enim primicias cogitacionum 
debemus offerre Domino Deo in aliqua bona cogitacione, vel 
oracione, cordis intencionem ad Dominum convertentes. Quales 
enim in oracione inveniri volumus, tales nos ante oracionis 
tempus debemus preparare. Convenientes ergo quantocius in 
ecclesiam ad dicendum sive cantandum divina officia et oraciones 
ac horas canonicas, habebimus nos composite in membris, in 
motibus secundum motum in ordinario domus expressum, 
sedendo sive stando vivaciter, sequentes exemplum sanctorum 
patrum in Egipto, de quibus ita dicit Cassianus in “Institutis 
Patrum”, libro secundo: “Cum Sinaxes celebraturi conveniunt, 
tantum prebetur a cunctis silencium, ut, cum in unum tam 
numerosa fratrum multitudo conveniat, preter illum, qui con- 
surgens psalmum decantat in medium, nullus homini putetur 
penitus adesse”. Ac precipue, cum consummatur oracio, id est 
collecta, in qua non [fol. 44] sputum emittitur non excreacio 
obstrepit non tussis intersonat non ossitacio sompnolenta dis- 
sutis malis et hiantibus trahitur. Illum vero, qui constitutus 
in tempore mentis aliquid horum, que predixi, e faucibus suis 
emittit ac precipue ossitacionibus prevenitur, dupliciter peccare 
pronunciant. Primo quod oracionis sue retis sit, quod eam 
videlicet negligenter offerat, secundo quod indisciplinato strepitu 
alterius quoque qui forsitan intencius orare potuit, intercipit 
sensum. Non eciam multitudine versuum, sed mentis intelligencia 
delectantur, illud tota virtute sectantes: psallam spiritu, psallam 
et mente. Menbru? eciam nostra decet nos ab inquietudine et 
superfluis occupacionibus frenare, ne vel nos vel alios ab 
intencione psalmorum et aliorum que in divino officio recitantur 


444 APPENDIX 


distrahant vel avertant. Insuper et folia vertere, vel alia sine 
necessitate pervidere cavendum est, maxime cum oracionem 
dominicam vel Credo silenter dicimus, vel quando lectio vel 
collecta vel aliquid aliud recitatur, quod ab uno solo singulariter 
dicitur, propter quod iuvenes et indigentes [fol. 4>] ..... ape ees 
quantum commode possunt de ............ esse provisi, ne 
se ipsos et alios per inquietudinem vel confusionem ab interiori 
intencione abstrahere possint. Persolvendo autem horas legemus 
vel cantabimus modeste et moderate, non nimis cursorie, nec 
nimis tractim, facientes pausam modicam in medio versus, 
solliciti uniformiter legere et cantare sine confusione, ut 
devocioni et maturitati et exultacioni deserviat. Semper autem 
presbiteri et clerici de mane dicunt matutinas et primas de 
tempore simul in ecclesia et alias horas sequentes postea eciam in 
ecclesia similiter suis temporibus, excepto quod ferialibus diebus 
tantum terciam et sextam seorsum servamus. Omni eciam 
tempore legunt qui sacerdotes non sunt, omnes simul matutinas 
et primas de Sancta Cruce et de Domina extra ecclesiam cum 
psalmo pro defunctis, ut consuetum est? post primas de primas* 
de tempore. Addentes tune particulam de materia conpunctio- 
num aut alias, ut tempus exigit. Simili modo eciam post 
vesperas de tempore in choro fi- [fol. 52] nitas dicent vesperas 
de sancta .........:.. cum alliis ut supra de matutinis et 
weeeeessss.- Gicitur. Die autem . precedente communionem 
fratrum legent de mane’ loco conpunctionum materiam. de 
preparando ad sacram communionem et eciam septem psalmos 
cum letaniis et collectis consuetis. Dicitur a singulis fratrum 
omni die responsorium “Benedic Domine” cum collectam, ut 
consuetum est, pro animabus eorum qui nobis in intercenariis 
et missis commissi sunt, ac eciam fratrum et parentum nostro- 
rum, benefactorum, amicorum, et omnium fidelium defunctorum 
de bone consuetudine. Dicimus pdriter in ecclesia per totum 
annum vigilias feriis secundis et quartis, dum in eis nec festum 
sit nec profestum, excepto quod per quadragesimam hora tercia 
post meridiem eas dicimus omni die preter in dominica in choro, 
sed in aliis festis vel profestis tune occurrentibus in privato. 
Preter hoc dicet quisque fratrum per se ad minus semel vigilias 
in privato pro eis quibus supra5, 


De studio sacre scripture 


Quia sacra scriptura a sanctis doctoribus [fol. 5>] conscripta 
salubriter instruit nos, quomodo in via Dei ambulare debemus, 
movetque affectum et voluntatem ad amorem virtutum et fugam 
viciorum simul eciam memoriam nostram, seclusis vanis et 
nocivis cogitacionibus, occupat fructuosis et utilibus. Simus 
ergo diligentes et continui in studio sacre scripture, habentes 
singuli penes nos aliquem librum de canonica aut alias autentica 
vel probata scriptura, quem librum elegamus de consilio con- 
fessoris nostri, perlegentes in eo singulis diebus aliquem passum 
pro spirituali refectione anime. Et ad hoc deputatam habemus 
specialiter unam horam de mane post lectionem horarum; qua 


APPENDIX 445 


hora vitabimus inutiles discursus et negocia inpeditiva, quibus 
abstrahamur a studio, nisi utilitas maior incumbat, aut obediencia 
caritatis aliud iniungit. 


De missa audienda Cap. V 


Et quia missam cotidie consuevimus audire, studeant se 
sacerdotes sollicite preparare, ut hora sexta simul et uniformiter 
possint celebrare, ita ut quasi simul incipi [fol. 6] simul 
incipiant et quasi NR eva ota Ad quam missam audiendam 
Sa earned .... Signo tempestive convenimus in ecclesia nostra. 
In qua non solemus ad populum conversi stare vel sedere, 
ne distrahamur mente, sed magis ab impedimentis liberum, 
prout oportunius valemus, locum querere. Quapropter clerici 
audientes missam maneant in choro vel loco secreto semper 
prostati et a populo segregati, ut eo intencius possint cor suum 
ad Deum dirigere et memoriam dominice passionis agere et 
per pias affectiones quasi ad spiritualem communionem nos 
debemus preparare. Si enim secundum Bernardum omni tem- 
pore et in omni loco, precipue tamen illo in tempore et illo 
loco rem misterii illius eo modo, quo traditum est, hoc est 
devoto pietatis affectu agere, tractare et sumere sibi in salutem, 
omnibus in promptu est®. Omnes ergo missa finita cum silencio 
revertimur ad cellas, agentes in eis opts quod pro tempore 
expediens est. Sequitur 


De labore 


[fol. 65] Quoniam humana fragilitas non permittit, ut homo 
in mentalibus exerciciis continue totus occupetur, idcirco prout 
multipliciter . persuasum habemus, quotidie aliquid manibus 
laboramus. Qui enim non est contentus quotidie aliquid manibus 
operari, non potest in cella diucius perdurare, ut dicitur in 
institutis sanctorum patrum, de quibus beatus Bernardus in 
epistula. ad fratres de monte Dei: “Patres nostri in Egipto 
et Thebaida, sancte huius vite ardentissimi emulatores, labora- 
bant manibus suis, et de labore suo pauperes pascebant, viventes 
de labore manuum suarum”, Opus eciam manuum reddit nos 
liberos, ne habeamus necesse inhiare pro donativis aliorum. 
Que causa promovit beatissimum Paulum, cum scribit ad 
Thessalonicenses: “Nec panem gratis manducamus ab aliquo, 
sed in labore et fatigacione, ne quem vestrum gravaremus”’. 
Inter opera manuum precipue consuluntur illa que cum 
spiritualibus propriorem videntur habere similitudinem, ut est 
opus scripture [fol. 74] cui operi insistebat eciam gloriosus 
Stee a: peers. iiratribus, suis, disciptli (o>... 9.0h... o sicuts dicie 
beatus Bernardus: “Serius tamen et prudens animus ad omnem 
se comparat laborem”. Sic autem consuevimus dividere tempora, 
ut tribus® horis ante prandium ferialis diebus qui clerici sunt 
laboribus insistamus, presbiteri vero duabus, decima hora ante 
prandium cessantes. Post prandium vero a duodecima hora 
usque ad terciam iterum operi manuum insistimus dicturi 
vesperas; quarta hora ad opus redimus. Si fuerit tamen dies 


446 APPENDIX 


ieiunii, laboramus ante prandium usque undecimam et post 
prandium incipimus hora prima. In opere manuum debemus 
esse fideles et ferventes: maledictus enim qui facit opus Domini 
negligenter. Et licet debeamus esse continui, non tamen nimii 
vel importunii, ne spiritum extinguamus; ymmo debemus niti 
manere, si non in continua bona meditacione, saltim in bona 
affectione, sepius erigendo cor nostrum ad Deum per breves 
oraciones, quas iaculatorias vocat beatus Augustinus. Item 
debemus in silencio operari, brevius [fol. 7] protunc expediendo 
ad nos venientes, nisi evidens utilitas persuadeat maturius loqui 
cum alio. Sequitur 


De commestione 


Officium preparandi mensam noviciis vel iunioribus commit- 
titur, ut consuetum est, ad quos pertinet statuto tempore ad 
prandium sive ad cenam mensas preparare; panem, potum, et 
alia necessaria apportare, aquam eciam ad lavatorium haurire 
et. pro eo sollicitari, ut numquam canale sine aqua inveniatur, 
preterquam in hyeme, quando gelu constringit aquam, quia 
tunc semper ad prandium et cenam recens aqua in vase aliquo 
apportatur, et propter gelu removetur postea. Anforas eciam 
lavare debent precipue in estate sepius et post cenam et 
prandium vacuas et interdum ablutas ad sua loca reponendo. 
Et in hoc debet quisque noviciorum sive iuniorum suam 
ebdomadam custodire et in fine ebdomade refectorium, transitum 
et alia necessaria scobis purgare, ut moris est. 

Ad mensam ergo sic paratam [fol. 88] debemus omnes simul 
mature tempestive in pulsu convenire, ut intersit unusquisque, 
cum legitur ‘“Benedicite’. Euntes autem ad mensam .,........ 
silencium in via, nihil loquendo et precipue apud lavatorium. 
Similiter servantes silencium redeuntes ad ecclesiam, usque dum 
post exitum ecclesie quisque venerit ad cameram suam. 
Sedentes autem ad mensam debemus cum silencio. sedere, 
cavendo ab omni strepitu, ut possimus eo quiecius et attencius 
sacram scripturam, que ibi legitur, auscultare, Item debemus 
visum continere, ne circumspiciamus, quid in mensa fiat, nisi 
alicui ex officio hoc incumberet. Et non debemus esse exquisiti 
et singulares in quantitate vel modo percipiendi cibum vel 
potum. Si habunde nobis fuerit amministratum, debemus cum 
graciarum actione percipere; si vero parcius, nichilominus 
debemus sine murmure contenti esse, cogitantes de penuria et 
frugalitate multorum, eciam secularium, qui multo minoribus 
et vilioribus sunt contenti. Non debent eciam fratres sedentes 
ad mensam [fol. 8>] ............ priusquam rectorem premissa 
mo eT lectionis attingere ViGerints. «akc iGo2 aliquid 
modice inclinamus et ipse in nobis. Bibentes, sicut moris est, 
duabus manibus amphoram vel ciphum teneamus, mensalia non 
convoluimus, donec rector suum convoluat. In estate ab octava 
Pasche usque ad festum Exaltacionis Sancte Crucis® consuevimus 
dormire post prandium, lectis nonis quousque per lectorem 
mense, prandio suo facto, fuerimus suscitati. Et dum fratres 


APPENDIX 447 


matutinas cantaverint, datur eciam sompnus meridianus, quo- 
cumque tempore anni fuerit, et excitabuntur per lectorem, sicut 
in estate consuevit fieri. Eo tempore erit domus clausa et 
cavebit sibi quisque a strepitu, ne impediat quiescentes. In 
hyeme vero, si post prandium sompno gravaremur, solemus 
sedentes modice inclinare caput per Miserere vel duo. Sequitur 


De lectore mense Capit. VIII 


[fel.-9%}. «Lector®: autém,.mense ...;........ dere libros, in 
quibus lege ............ loca whbi incipiendum et ut legenda 
per .......... refectionem sufficiant. Aperte autem et distincte 


leget omnia et attente sine festinacione et importunitate, ita 
ut perfecte possint intelligi, et tali voce, ita ut ab omnibus 
possit audiri. Solet autem unusquisque de presbiteris et clericis 
habere unam integram ebdomadam legendi ad mensam, in- 
cipiendo a senioribus sabbato de sero. Sed a feria quarta, que 
est in capite ieiunii, usque ad diem Pasche quotidie succedunt 
sibi in ordine, non legentes nisi per unum diem. Quod si lector 
absens fuerit, precedens eum locum eius supplebit, nisi, qui 
lector erit, omnino per totam ebdomadam vel quasi non 
venerit, quia tunc sequens eum succedit, ipse vero, qui per 
absenciam ebdomadam suam non custodivit, postea supplebit. 
Lectori eciam licitum est aliquid gustare, priusquam fratres ad 
refectionem intrent et sero ante collacionem bibere, si necesse 


fuerit. Et dum [fol. 9>] ............ accommodare et oculum 
COM Eee eee eillendaverits intelligeres POSSity ni. \aceys ee hts 
ebet inchoare lectionem, donec strepitus ............ conquie- 


scat. Item lector et qui post commedunt cum eo silencium 
tenent. 


Quid post cenam fiet Capit. IX 


Cena facta et dicto completorio, facit unusquisque in camera 
sua quid convenit sibi, vel pumicat, vel lineat, vel studet, vel 
loquitur cum aliquo de edificacione anime usque ad octavam 
horam. Qua signata sine mora dimittemus a nobis, si qui assint 
alieni, et claudetur domus et vocabit unusquisque sibi servando 
silencium ex tunc usque ad sextam horam de mane. Et tunc 
precipue convenit quod beatus Bernardus ait: “Fidelis servus 
Thesu Christi post completorium singulis diebus capitulum sibi 
teneat et convocatis cogitacionibus, ponat cum eis racionem”, 
et cetera. Et sic media hora infra octavam et nonam habito 
prius devoto exercicio et examine sui, ut dictum est, solemus 
simul ire dormitum. 


[De collacione] 


Sed quia per collacionem [fol. 104] mutuam, ubi de aliqua 
materia sacre scripture fit caritativum colloquium, non solum 
instruimur ad scienciam, sed eciam accendimur ad fervorem 
et precipue nutritur ex hoc caritas fraterna. Dicit enim beatus 
Anthonius optimum esse, si se fratres mutuis consolentur 
sermonibus. Idcirco consuevimus festivis diebus, dum _ per 


448 APPENDIX 


rectorem aut procuratorem in eius absencia signum factum 
fuerit, de sero post completorium convenire et-colloqui de 
materia edificatoria, occasionem conferendi sumentes ex libro 
qui collacionale dicitur, ex quo passus designatus illi diei vei 
tempori per rectorem aut procuratorem in eius absencia legetur. 
Sed valde necessarium est, ut fratres solliciti sint, ut de materia 
proposita uniformiter loquantur non adducentes vana_ vel 
extranea. Nec fiant inter nos disputaciones vel argumentaciones 
infructuose, sed unusquisque cum modestia proponit quid pro 
materia deseruit. Item pro maiori iunvenum consulitur, ut novicii 
illi collacioni disciplina, verecundia, et reverencia ad fratres 
servanda non intersint, sed seorsum per se loquantur de materia 
bona et edificatoria; et ad mensem aut sex ebdomadas aut 
quomodocumque placet rectori mittatur ad eos instructor 
noviciorum aut alius seniorum, priusquam lecta est materia 
collacionis!®, Diebus eciam festivis finitis vesperis in ecclesia 
DALGenialre TO) <2 LOR. ae ee sos tegd ee nostris per rectorem ad 
OCI Wet ie ae ..... emet rector pro communi populo facere 
collacionem in ecclesia nostra. In qua collacione studebit 
quisque secundum datam sibi graciam verbis_ edificatoriis 
populum commovere, non quidem per modum predicacionis, 
sed simplicis exhortacionis. Et hoc faciet quidem ferventer et 
efficaciter, attendens quod non est Deo gracius sacrificiium quam 
zelus animarum. In quo opere non studebit ornatis locucionibus, 
vel magistralibus allegacionibus, que pascunt tantummodo aures 
audiencium, sed magis motivis et compunctivis verbis corda et 
voluntates audiencium ‘'tangere. Collacione igitur thuiusmodi 
completa non stent fratres in omni via, neque misceant cum 
secularibus et extraneis multos sermones, sed ibit quisque ad 
cameram stiam, revolvens et ruminans in corde suo quid audierit 
aptabitque profectui sue spiritual, [fol. 114] Et eciam clericis 
ist hae pee ..-.. quod ipsis conveniat ad emenda ......... 

Et si qui a nobis consilium pecierint, possumus eis humiliter 
et mature quod bonum videtur suggerere. In arduis tamen 
casibus consulendis et in confessionalibus ad eum qui preest 
domui nostre eos dirigere. Quando eciam ad cameras nostras. 
‘tune vel aliquo alio tempore locuturi nobiscum veniunt, non de- 
bemus eos diucius et ad longius ultra dimidiam horam ‘apud nos. 
tenere, nec de inutilibus aut rumoribus seculi cum eis colloquium 
habere, sed magis de hiis que pro salute animarum suarum eis 
necessaria videntur efficaciter eos instruere, precipue exhortantes, 
ut in revelandis temptacionibus et passionibus Suis sint aperti 


et ad acquiescendum sanis consiliis prompti et voluntarii. 
Sequitur 


De correpcione Capitulum X 


Quoniam correpcio, prout est actus caritatis fraterne, 
necessaria videtur pro conservacione discipline, dicit enim 
Crisostomus: “Bonus, nisi correptus perit fuerit’%4, Idcirco 
proposuimus nos invicem ex caritate corripere secundum modum 
nobis a Salvatore propositum: [fol. 11>] “............2... est: 


tiv 


APPENDIX 449 
te sciente frater tuus corripe eum inter te et ipsum solum”, 
et ceteral?, In remis ..... weeeeees. peccatorum et, ut passiones 


et vicia nostra vincere possimus, debemus interdum ad hoc 
convenire ad invicem ammonendum et corripiendum, dum 
rectori bonum visum fuerit, Sic autem congregati post lectionem 
prius fratrum surgat iunior omnium primo et dicat in genibus: 
“Karissimi fratres est culpa mea quod male conversando non 
tam bene servavi consuetudines domus, ut debui, prebens aliis 
malum exemplum”. Et precipue dicet in duobus vel in tribus 
suis propriis defectibus culpam suam, subiungens: “Et quod 
ulterius in me notastis, rogo ut propter Deum michi in caritate 
dicatis, quia libenter volo me emendare’. Et tunc dicent ad 
nutum rectoris duo vel tres vel plures, quid in ipso notaverint, 
qui ad singula humiliter dicet, Mea culpa. Et quando sic dicta 
sunt, tune ulterius dicet cum omni humilitate: “Indulgeatis 
michi propter Deum quod tam male me habui, libenter me 
emendabo et rogo eciam, [fol. 12®]- ut sitis semper liberi ad 


me Sah Pi henk: ~nendum, ut oretis Deum pro me .......... 
emendandi post hoc osculando FOSP esate ee antiqua 
consuetudine servatum est, ut ............ cepti fratres et layci 


et clerici ad aliquos annos vel ad sacerdocium?* et si qui alii 
sunt, quibus hoc commissum est, exeant post ammonicionem 
ipsis factam. Igitur in hoc tempore et in aliis locis et temporibus 
debet esse ammonicio dulcis, humilis; et supplicatoria a fratribus 
porrecta. Rigorosa aliquando spectat ad rectorem, cum duricia 
vel cecitas superba alicuits vel alia cattsa requirit. Secundum 
Bernardum . attendere debemus tria in -correpcione, _ scilicet 
compassionis affectum, zelum rectitudinis, spiritum discrecionis. 
Item debemus invicem corripere de apertis negligenciis et 
excessibus contra bonos mores et pias consuetudines, maxime 
quas habemus in scriptis; item de verbis duris, clamorosis, 
iocosis, de excusso risu, de verbis ociosis, de multiloquio infra 
tempus cuiuslibet operis, de guerris aut rumoribus seculi, que 
ad nos non spectant, cum hospitibus sive inter nos, de silencio 
post commedencium infra comestionem post octavam in coquina 
Exoi Ge 67101 eee Paes rasure et apud ignem, prout melius 
teneri potest, non servato, de negligenciis in officiis commissis, 
de partinacia in propria voluntate et proprio consilio, sive 
excusando sive defendendo, de moribus et gestibus incompositis 
et inconsuetis, et sic de similibus aliis viciis apertis. Istud 
omnino visum est sic expedire, nec per minima non correpta, 
successive vicia in domo pullulent et fervor paulatim pereat. 
Et ideo, ut liberiores ad corripiendum nos mutuo faciamus, 
quilibet ibit semel in quindena ad aliquem de fratribus, petendo, 
ut non vereattr eum corripere, cum in aliquo excessu ab eo 
fuerit deprehensus. Si autem predicta collacio defectuum nobis 
proficiet, oportet, ut fratres de correptis studeant se emendare. 
Et quod rector domus super omnia attendat, an ea fratres opere 
perficiant, de quibus correpti sunt, et eciam sepius requirat, 
si omnes per quindenam pro defectibus et ante festa communi- 
cabilia ad II aut III fratres pro venia sua vadant, ut vigilanter 
ammoneat transgressores. 


450 APPENDIX 


De rectore 


Quia in magna et in parva qualibet republica, [fol. 134] si 
conservari debeat, necesse est esse unum presidentem, — dicit 
enim beatus Iheronimus: “Non civitas, non regnum, non 
minima domuncula diu maneret in rure, si cuius voluntati 
pareretur, deesset’”. Idcirco de communi consilio fratrum et 
aliorum patrum nostrorum visitatorum consuevimus unum 
presbiterum ad hoc deputare, qui patrisfamilias loco personarum 
domus et rerum ad eam pertinencium principalem curam gerat. 
Huic, licet nullam iurisdictionalem auctoritatem super fratres 
habeat, tamen propter profectum sttuum et meritum obediencie 
et propter pacem domesticam et conservacionem rerum et status 
nostri ex caritate subiecti esse non gravabuntur. Huic precipue 
‘incumbit fratres de excessibus corripere et redarguere, con- 
fessiones personarum domus de licencia prelatorum suorum 
audire, et ad meliora queque verbo et exemplo provocare. Huic 
fratres in corde caritatem, in verbis fidelitatem, et in exhibicione 
reverenciam studeant conservare. Et licet ubique, tamen 
maxime in presencia eius observare fratres debent, ut modeste 
et verecunde se habeant. Sine huius scitu et licencia nemo 
presumat literas alicubi mittere, aut missas aperire vel legere. 
einiiliter diate] LOU PL 3P Pe tie ne nant ulis aut sine literis nun 

pea Sa RD . posito rectori occultetur animo 
Sine huius licencia nemo domum exeat, nisi propter commis- 
sionem aliquam de hoc licenciam generalem habeat, ut cocus 
vel aliter in exterius deputatus. Item sine eius licencia, dum 
presens fuerit, nullus fratrum hospites invitet, et in eius 
absencia, qui invitandus videtur, de licencia procuratoris 
invitetur. Item si aliquid de maioribus negociis domus nostre 
vel alias grave tractandum fuerit, ipse fratres in unum faciat 
convenire, ibique cum omnes quid senserint libere pronunciant, 
quod maiori et saniori parti visum fuerit expedire, per eum 
ulterius concludatur; in minoribus vero negociis, que consilium et 
deliberacionem fratrum requirant, cum procuratore domus vel 
tribus de senioribus colloquium habens, quod sanius et racion- 
abilius inventum fuerit, sine dissencione aut partinacia cuiusquam 
pacifice determinetur. Quodsi propter aliquid intricatum vel 
alias, quod absit, inter se expedire non poterunt, ad omnes 
fratres referatur, et quod [mlJaiori et saniori parti visum fuerit, 
sine replicacione concludatur. [fol. 149] Ceterum studebit 
rector domus nostre aliis fratribus se conformare in cibo et 
potu, et humilitate hhabitus, et ceteris consuetudinibus, que 
convenienter servare poterit. Nec concesso sibi abutatur officio, 
sed sciat eo magis debere irreprehensibilem se gerere, quantum 
humana permittit fragilitas, tam coram extraneis quam coram 
domesticis; et videat sibi, ne’ querat que sua sunt, sed que 
Thesu Christi. In fratribus suis sic persequatur vicia aliena, ut 
non palpet sua, nec dominum se attendat, sed servum fratrum 
suorum, quibus si vere superior vult inveniri, omnium seryum 
et minimum studeat se in veritate estimare. Nitatur ipse 


APPENDIX 45t 


precipue esse affabilis et dulciter seriosus, in ammonicionibus 
fervidus, in consiliis. providus et in promocione omnis boni 
sollicitus. Fugiat perplexitates et distractiones secularium 
negociorum et precipue execuciones testamentatorum, ubi 
racionabiliter recusare poterit. Sit semper paratus et voluntarius 
cedere officio suo, si fratribus et patribus visitatoribus nostris 
videatur alteri iniungendum. Et non debent fratres proni esse 
ad iudicandum sive sinistre [fol. 14>] interpretandum facta vel 
dicta rectoris sui, si humanum aliquod in eo notaverint. Quodsi 
ammonere eum vel premuniri utile videatur, fiat hoc servata 
debita humilitate et verecundia. Et quia interdum cum latere 
contingit, tam de se quam de aliis que expediret sibi notificari, 
bonum est quod ad hoc deputet unum de fratribus qui de 
talibus eum habeat ammonitum et premunitum. Salvo quod 
unusquisque in specie cor suum interdum eidem libere debet 
aperire et preter ista precipue quater in anno, ut inferius dicetur. 
Sequitur 


De procuratore 


Pro speciali cura temporalium nostrorum rector domus de con- 
silio fratrum, vel maioris et sanioris partis eorum, eligere 
consuevit unum procuratorem, cuits officium est redditus 
nostros et alia que debentur nobis, per se vel per alium monere 
et tollere, quecumque pro victu et vestitu legata et donata 
levare et, que nos tenemur solvere indigemus, tempestive 
procurare, quecumque emenda, vendenda, vel. coquenda sunt, 
ordinare. Item sollicitabitur, ne res domus pereant et annul- 
lentur, sive in victualibus, [fol. 15] sive in utensilibus, sive in 
edificiis, et que curanda vel reparanda sunt, per se vel per 
alium studeat reparare. Non tamen advocabit alienum operarium 
sine consilio rectoris. Cum aliquid edificandum est, ei incumbit 
providere de singulis, salvo quod structura ordinetur de consilio 
rectoris et fratrum. Item ipse consuevit ad mensam ministrare. 
Item potest fratres advocare indifferenter ad communes labores 
in domo, et potest coquum et alium ad externa deputatum 
mittere pro negociis suis extra domum, sed non alios fratres 
sine licencia rectoris et ipse, quando exire habet, loquatur 
prius rectori antequam exeat, dum presens est, in eius tamen 
absencia debet hoc intimare seniori de fratribus. Item omnia 
recepta, concessa, legata, vel donata sollicite et sine dilacione 
ponat in scriptis. Similiter debita soluta deleat sine mora. 
Alias enim notabile incommodum vel eciam disceptacio cum 
extraneis inde possit evenire. Item non concedat ab aliquo 
ultra libram grossorum sine scitu rectoris et consensu_ vel 
duorum discretorum fratrum, si rector absens fuerit. Nec eciam 
concedet ultra dimidium florenum uni persone sine scitu ut 
supra. [fol. 15>] Item nulli aliquid sive in pecuniis sive in aliis 
rebus, ultra valorem dimidii stuferi al ........... 2. ee Sepius 
dabit. Nec eciam concedet aliquibus utensilia domus, videlicet 
lectos, lintheamina, ollas, et cetera, ad quartalle anni sive ultra 
sine scitu rectoris. Item de elemosinis dandis pauperibus ipse 


452 APPENDIX 


sollicitabitur, sed non excedet notabiliter modum consuetum 
elemosinarum sine scitu rectoris, Item non presumat absente 
rectore alique attemptare vel imponere que mon faceret per se 
presente rectore, sed si alique cause necessarie occurrerent, in 
huiusmodi faciat de consilio duorum vel trium discretorum 
fratrum. Item non presumat per se annullare vel immutare 
aliqua jhactenus consueta, sive in vestibus, sive in victualibus, 
sive in aliis consuetudinibus, nec in agendis querat pascere 
propriam voluntatem, sed nitatur omnia facere secundum velle 
rectoris et fratrum. Item studeat expedite facere facienda et 
non ociose huc illucque discurrere, quasi sub pallio officii sui, 
sed semper quo cicius recurrere ad laborem manuum, si hora 
[fol. 162] est, vel ad spirituale excercicium in camera sua. Et 
precipue de mane et de vespera nitatur se abstrahere ab 
occupacionibus, recolligendo mentem suam, ne distractiones 
externe penitus eviscerent eum a desiderio eternorum et faciant . 
secularem. Item laboratoribus nostris et precipue pauperibus 
qui laborant nobis solvat plenam mercedem operis sui, ne 
habeant de nobis conqueri. Item nitatur proinde tractare et 
facere pacta sua cum secularibus, ne contingat cum eis habere 
dissenciones et rixas. Item videat sibi quod inveniatur verax 
in verbis suis et non permittat debita nostra que tenemur diu 
insoluta, maxime wubi creditores nostri non sunt contenti de 
mora solucionis. Item non permittet que debentur nobis 
inveterare, me debitores nostri oblivioni tradant et postea 
recusent solvere. Si in huiusmodi negligens repertus fuerit, 
sciat se increpacione dignum, eo quod non fuerit in commisso 
‘fidelis. Item diligenter custodiat cedulas et registra reddituum 
nostrorum et pactorum cum colonis nostris, cum quibus ipse 
habet computare et tractare tractanda; sed non elocabit aliquam 
terram ad annos sine scitu rectoris. [fol. 16] Item semel in 
anno, circa tempus inicii, registri sui vide ................ 
sicionis faciet de omnibus coram rectore et fratribus compu- 
tacionem planam, resignans bursam, claves, registrum, et 
officium suum, quantum in ipso est, et petens humiliter 
absolucionem. Item fratribus qui debent ambulare extra civi- 
tatem dabit bursam cum pecuniis, secundum quod reysa brevior 
vel longior sibi videbitur- expedire. Qui eciam revertentes 
reddant sibi bursam et pecuniam, si que superfuit. Item salvis 
premissis sit ille qui habet officium procuratore, sicut ceteri 
fratres, et videat sibi, quod utiliter, humiliter et pacienter habet 
se cum fratribus. Et ipsi fratres humiliter, benigne, et caritative 
se habeant cum omnibus, maxime tamen cum eo. Sic enim 
decet, ut eis qui presunt in sollicitudine non onerosos sed 
graciosos se exhibeant. 


De vestiario XIII 


Licet procuratori incumbat providere fratribus de _ vestitu, 
consuevit tamen a rectore in sublevamen procuratoris uni de 
fratribus committi specialis cura de vestibus laneis et lineis, 
calceis, et calopodiis. Iste respectum habebit, ne fratres [fol. 174] 


APPENDIX 453 


defectum in aliquo horum paciantur; unde rupta faciat quo 
cicius resartire, que vero attricione soluta resartiri decenter 
non possunt, novis studeat commutare. Non tamen fiat alicui 
nova toga, sive tunica sine scitu rectoris, cui vestiarius hoc 
debet intimare. De preciositate panni servetur modus noster 
consuetus, videlicet pro togis et tunicis quatuor ulne non 
excedant valorem duorum florenorum Renensium ad omne 
magis, sed pro capuciis una ulna duodecim stuferos vel circa 
constabit. Item ipse dicet procuratori, ut pannum satis tempes- 
tive provideat. Item pannum ipse custodiat. Item proxima 
feria post festum Exaltacionis Sancte Crucis ipse circueat 
cameras fratrum cum rectore et provideat lectos et lectisternia, 
lintheamina et suppellectilia fratrum, similiter cussinos et vestes 
inferiores, ut qui in aliquo horum superhabundat, quo carere 
potest, resignet. Qui vero deficit, per providenciam vestiarii, quo 
indiget, oportuno tempore accipiat. Habeat quilibet pellicium 
et duas subtunicas, unam simplam et unam duplam. [fol. 17>] 
Pellicia fratrum ante festum Sancte Crucis aliqua serena die 
simul in ortum ventilanda et excucienda ipse deferat, et que 
reparacione vel-innovacione indigent, ipse pervideat. In figura 
vestimentorum nostrorum, latitudine videlicet et longitudine, 
servetur modus humilis, qui humiles et devotos clericos decet; 
presbiteri habent tunicas longas usque ad talos, clerici vero ad 
latitudinem manus supra talos, laici nostri adhuc_ breviores, 
Clausa sint desuper vestimenta nostra. Provideat vestiarius ut 
duo vel tres sint tabbardi de nigro panno et similiter toge due 
vel tres. Vel loco nigrorum!4 tria sint vel quatuorl5 capucia 
grisea, que portabunt layci nostri sicut tabbardi nigri, et toge 
distribuantur iuxta videre rectoris!®, Item pervideat vestiarius 
circa festum Exaltacionis Sancte Crucis, an alique tunice 
inferiores indigent, ut laventur. Item pannum lineum ad 
femoralia!7 et alia necessaria ipse habet procurare, et ut camisie 
fratrum, que de laneo panno preter infirmos erunt!8, et femoralia 
linea laventur et camisie, si que [fol. 184] linee sint19, laventur, 
quociens fuerit oportunum, et ut lota distribuantur fratribus, 
in qua distribucione nulla fiat specificacio, nisi quod respiciatur 
quantitas stature fratrum. Et quia de lavandis ipse habet se 
intromittere, eciam de mappis mensalibus et manutergiis lavandis 
et innovandis eidem cura commissa est. Item circa inicium 
mensis Octobris ipse dabit fratribus capucia duplicia . circa 
hyemem futuram,’ que precedente hyeme ab wunoquoque 
receperat. Que si satis attrita fuerint, commutabit in nova et 
recipiat ab eis simplicia in suam custodiam procurando, ut 
laventur et curentur. Eodem quoque tempore dabunter fratribus 
calige et socci et alia quibus indigent circa hyemem. Item circa 
finem mensis Aprilis recipiet a fratribus capucia duplicia et 
restituet eis simplicia. Item fratres debent humiliter et cum 
graciarum actione recipere quod eis fuerit amministratum, nec 
conqueri [fol. 18>] super vilitate alicuius vestimenti, attendentes 
quod qui preciosis et mollibus vestiuntur in domibus regum 
sunt: num enim celesti sed terreno regno militant, qui pro Deo 


A54 APPENDIX 


perpeti adversa fugiunt, sed solis exterioribus dediti presentis 
vite molliciem et venustatem querunt. Item si aliquis frater 
pateretur defectum aliquem scissuram vel rupturam in vesti- 
mento, qui ad extra non deprehenderetur, hoc deberet cum 
debita humilitate referre vestiario. Ipse vero vestiarius sollicitus 
sit, quantum paupertas nostra sustinet, omnibus moderate 
procurare, nec permittat aliquem in dissutis et attritis diucius 
incedere, nisi forte ex industria de voluntate rectoris ob humili- 
tatis excercicium aliquis vetera solito tardius permitteretur 
commutare. Item vestiarius pie corripiat eos qui negligencius 
vestes suas custodiunt. Item provideat quod habeantur teristra 
pro laborantibus in externis et calcei et pillei pro itinerantibus. 
Sequitur 


De cura scribendorum Capit. XIV 


{fol. 192] Uni de fratribus ...... foie) COMMIT twee 
seribendorum et parandorum et custodia pergameni .... 
quantum poterit, ut omnes fratres_ sufficienter habeant ad 


scribendum et exemplaria correcta. Et si fieri poterit, omnibus 
procuret Latinum scribere. Et non facile remittat aliquem 
petentem sibi unum bonum librum scribi, quamvis pro tempore 
nullus vacaverit, sed inducat, ut exspectet modico tempore. 
Cum aliquis pecierit sibi scribi librum, pro quo habet scriptorem, 
ostendat ei manum scriptoris et conveniat cum eo de quaterno 
in quaternum; de notabilibus tamen libris non conyeniat cum 
aliquo, nisi de consilio rectoris. Item faciat contractus suos 
plane et, si necesse est, per cedulas, ne postea cum aliquo 
altercari necesse habeat. Et wbi non presumitur propta?° solucio, 
non resignet librum ante solucionem vel fideiussionem cope- 
tentem2!, maxime apud ignotos. Et in magnis libris accipiat 
Pol ae Lop] tees. oe Fite ine es Be ha libri pro emendo pergameno 
Fe Ne ACN he RENE EEN oe habebit curam de incausto braxando 
quod semper bonum incaustum sit pro scriptoribus nostris. 
Circa custodiam pergameni et franceni et aliorum scribentibus 
necessariorum sollicitabit tempestive. Item sit sollicitus plane 
et distincte omnia debita et recepta signare in registro suo. 
Et quod de pecuniis ad manus eius venerit, tradet procuratori. 
Iste debet ammonicionem facere tempore collacionis dierum 
festorum post completorium, ut in cuiuslibet mensis solaris 
secunda die, si ferialis sit, quisque fratrum cum _ socio sibi 
deputato corrigat et inscribat scripturam correcture, antequam 
ulterius scribatur. Sequitur 


De armario Cap. XV 


Armarius omnes libros domus ad officium divinum non 
spectantes in custodia sua habet, quos eciam propriis nominibus 
singillatim annotatos habere debet et diligenter prospicere, ne 
in eis tinea vel alia quelibet corruptela infectum quid vel exesum 


sit. [fol. 202] Et signabit omnes libros .............. domum 
accommodantur et nomina .......... et terminum concessionis 
Shasit Sk Meee .... repetere per internuncium, si qui libri diu 


APPENDIX 435 


prefixe concessionis non reportantur. Et non debet aliquem 
librum concedere alicui extra opidum sine scitu rectoris. Sed 
nec aliquis fratrum presumat quemcumque librorum extra domum 
concedere sine scitu librarii. Libris autem quos pro studio 
accipiunt fratres omnem diligenciam curamque prebere monen- 
tur, ne vel pulvere vel alia qualibet sorde maculentur. Armarius 
eciam ostendat legentibus ad mensam quid et quando debeant 
legere. Omelie sanctorum in festis et hiis diebus qui eas 
proprias habent primo omnium legantur, deinde biblia ad 
prandium et alii sermones et passiones sanctorum, ut moris est, 
eciam ad vesperum, ubi semper pronunciabitur, in martirologio 
pro die sequenti, preter quam in tridwo ante Pascha quibus in 
martirologio non recitatur. Semel in anno in estate colligat 


Alita TATE Sis | TOL we DOw!] fe) rhea ogee, debita vocati fratres presente 
Phi eee baie et mundare et exaniinare ...)........ atmarius 
PectoOr Cedulantelibroruimies esos oe oketee tunc vel alias possit 


numerum librorum. Sequitur 
De infirmario XVI 


Infirmorum cura uni de fratribus solet committi. Hunc pre- 
cipue convenit esse compassivum et obsequiosum. Iste postquam 
per rectorem vel procuratorem ad alicuius infirmi nostri 
servicium vocatus fuerit, de cetero frequencius secundum quod 
infirmitas plus vel minus videtur exigere, ad eum debet accedere, 
eique sedule ministrare, lectum eius preparare et ea quibus 
circa lectum pro infirmitate indiguerit procurare. Cibum ipse 
habet apponere et que commedenti superfuerint asportare et 
de coquendis pro infirmo apud procuratorem providere. Si pro 
medicina aliqua facienda videntur, habet ipse rectori vel procura- 
tori intimare. Si circa infirmum vigilari necesse fuerit, alii 
fratres de licencia rectoris petant infirmarium supportare. Item 
si infirmitas invaluerit, de communione et unctione [fol. 214] 
-debet rectorem ammonere. Et debet diligenter ea que circa 
officia sacre communionis et unctionis requiruntur preparare. 
De quibus pro consuetudine ecclesie servanda habeat cedulam, 
in qua premissa et ea que circa officium defunctorum pertinent 
sint inscripta. Item infirmarius secundum quod infirmo notaverit 
expedire, debet eum dulciter ammonere ad pacienciam et ad 
graciarum actionem, ad invocacionem Dei et sanctorum, ad 
spem, ad fidem, et cetera, que saluti eius putaverit deservire. 
Et si qui per longas confabulaciones et crebras visitaciones 
infirmo onerosi fuerint, eos debet ab infirmo cohibere. Si vero 
sine visitacione, que sibi grata sive necessaria est, relinquitur, 
hoc debet aliquibus intimare. Et licet infirmarius pro posse 
suo in omnibus que racionabiliter petit infirmus, debet ei 
graciose condescendere et servire. Caveat tamen infirmus nimiis 
et immoderatis serviciis infirmarium onerare, sive eciam in 
diversis petendis et requirendis, que minus necessaria videntur, 
ipsum et alios inquietare sive eciam querulosus ffol. 21>] 
insistere, sed pacienciam, quam tempore sanitatis habuit in 
proposito, tempore infirmitatis studeat habere in facto. Studeat 


456 APPENDIX 


in omnibus Deo gracias agere, ne infirmitas, que data est ei ad 
purgacionem anime, vertatur in augmentum culpe. Item caveat 
infirmarius, ne tempus quod sibi suppetit sub pallio servicii sui 
ocio vel negligencia deducat, sed quando vacare poterit ad 
laborem manuum et alia consweta excercicia recurrat. 


De rasura, minucione, et locione 


Officium radendi vel ad id necessaria preparandi, dum barbi- 
tonsor in domo non est, unus de fratribus infirmario vel alteri 
cuique debet committi, qui, dum tempus rasure fuerit, aquam 
calidam et alia debet disponere, et videant fratres ne rasurem 
vocatus mora sua molestet, sed expedite festinabit adesse. 
Quando eciam raduntur fratres, caveant clamores et strepitum 
in loco rasure et, si que necessaria fuerint loqui, indicant paucis 
verbis et submissis. Omni septimana radi debent tonsure 
presbiterorum et barbe aliorum, vel barbe clericorum, tonsure 
circa quindénam. [fol. 228] Istius officii est eciam preparare 
Lick aia .... in Omni mense semel, ut fratres pedes abluunt 
nisi gelaret et ad hoc habetur in sua custodia vasa loture apta 
et mappulas vel alia ad tergendum. Item lixivium et alia ad 
lavandum capita procurare omni feria sexta quatuor temporum 
vel sabbato, si ferialis dies sit. Hic eciam cum minucionis 
tempus, quod quater in anno observatur, advenerit, debet omnia 
ad minucionem necessaria preparare. Die ergo illa qua minuendi 
sunt fratres tempore debito construatur ignis in loco deputato 
et omnibus ad minucionem requisitis preparatis in signo 
conveniant omnes et non minuti eisdem, quibus minuti par- 
ticipant beneficiis. Et primam quidem diem totam in communi 
iocunditate fraterne socialitatis deducimus tempore refectionis 
premissa aliqua lectione cum modestia’ invicem colloquentes. 
Observetur, ut omnia in recreacione fiant sine notabili tumultu 
et effusione spiritus, ita ut laxamenta illa sint plena honestatis 
et si careant nimio pondere, non tamen careant edificacione. 
Secunda die post vesperas hora quarta de licencia rectoris 
PTO eo bern ak Sie cee te eadem gracia ad signum convenire 
a ae al Jje2 lacesub cena ut *pritsedicitus. . 2 eee 
colloquium exercere. Sequitur 


De custode Cap. XVIII 


Solet eciam rector domus uni fideli devoto et accepto clerico 
domus nostre committere claves et custodiam ecclesie nostre 
et curam omnium que in ecclesia sunt, videlicet albas, casulas, 
calices quoque et omnes libros et reliqua omnia ad divinum 
officium pertinencia. Ipse igitur custos omnia que habet sub 
sta custodia cum magna reverencia et diligencia servare debet 
et frequenter inspicere, ne quid forte ex sua negligencia in rebus 
quotidie necessariis desit, vel ne ornamenta ecclesie aliqua 
corrupcio vermium aut humorum destruat. Et ideo, si qua in 
ornamentis aut in ceteris que ad ministerium ecclesie pertinent 
scissa vel contrita, aut quolibet alio modo reparanda fuerint, 
debet curare ut cicius reparentur, omnia queque munda custodire 





APPENDIX 457 


et immunda queque, ut cicius abluantur, procurare, [fol. 234] 
et diligenter precavere me un .......... tree, Stine QUElIDEt alia 
consectatassetubenediGtarivecca ce asin vs asst nerint ad alios usus 
extra sacrum ministerium. 

Et ideo debet distinguere per signa vel scriptam appositam 
consecrata a non consecratis, sive nova fuerint sive vetera, ne 
eciam ex errore vel negligencia prophana et non consecrata 
in sacrum ministerium veniant loco sacrorum. Quocienscumque 
autem ablui debent corporalia vel calicum ‘lintheolam, debet 
hoc congruo tempore providere et similiter de aliis quibuscumque 
lavandis. Ad cuius eciam officium pertinet habere curam 
horologii, oblata quoque et vinum ad missas, oleum et cereos 
et eciam alias candelas ad usum ecclesie pertinentes tempestive 
procurare et servare. Prunas quoque ad thurificacionem in 
missa et utrisque vesperis in solempnibus festis per se vel per 
alium procurabit, similiter et lampadem et campanam, cum 
necesse fuerit, mundare debet et inungere. Ecclesiam totam a 
summo usque deorsum bis mundabit in anno, pavimentum vero 
ecclesie et precipue ipsius chori et sanctuarii [fol. 230 a Z 
yee atic mundare debet cum opu .............. pertinet debita 
LetmanOna mud Lan GOm a Gemaise teenie ote. endum est custodire et 
signa pulsare et alia ad sanctum ministerium necessaria prepa- 
rare. Tempore estivo debet interdum, dum serena dies fuerit, 
Ornamenta ecclesie excutere et ventilare. Item triduo ante 
Pascha calices lavabit, vel lavari procurabit, lavaturas in 
piscinam proiciendo. Eodem tempore per sacerdotem cum 
reverencia comburetur sacrum oleum, comibustionem in piscinam 
similiter fundendo. Candelabra et alia vasa ecclesie, quociens 
opportunum fuerit, debet mundare per se vel per alium. Item 
registrabit custos omnes libros ecclesie et ornamenta et albas 
et mappas et candebra?? et cetera notabilia utensilia ecclesie, 
ut semel in anno presente rectore et fratribus pervideri possint?*. 
Hec igitur sunt que custodis sollicitudini commissa sunt, in 
quibus debet niti fidelis et diligens inveniri, ut mercedem a 
Domino Deo tam pii laboris in celesti templo ergo recipere 
mereatur. Sequitur 


De hospitario Cap. XIX 


Hospitarius unus eligatur per rectorem de fratribus acceptis 
in bonis moribus et disciplina, quantum fieri potest, eruditus 
[fol. 242] qui super venientes hospites ..... cee CUS Aes ei peer 
recipiens et omnibus‘honorem .................. reverenciam 
impedens maxime -religiosis et devotis singulis, sicut caritas 
exigit, et humanitatem exhibere et obsequium curat impendere. 
Caveantur autem colloquia vel interrogaciones cum hospitibus 
de rumoribus seculi, sed magis exhortentur ad emendacionem 
vite et ,contemptum mundi, si seculares sint. Provideat semper 
pro hospitibus aliquem librum, ex quo legere possunt aliquam 
particulam pro refectione ipsius anime, qua detur occasio et 
materia loquendi de Deo et edificacione et salute anime, quem 
quidem librum semper super mensam debet ponere, antequam 


458 APPENDIX 


ipsis primum ferculum amministraverit. Debet eciam hospitarius 
hospitum pedes lavare, vel facere lavari, dum de longa via 
pedestres venerint, vel alias opus fuerit, maxime si religiosi et 
devoti fuerint, vel tantum aquam calidam eis apponere, ut lavent 
Ligissae Pew ete Vcckaan bys non permiserint, providebit 
Ee bia kt ie Aton creas mentibus lumen de mane. Ipse .......... 
sekeirinebie dkee sternere et in hyeme eciam ipsis ignem construere. 
Ad ipsum eciam pertinet mensalia et manutergia, lectos. et 
cussinos et Omnia mnecessaria et requisita pro hospitibus 
impetrare et conservare. Sollicitetur ut hospites suos de sero 
tempestive cenare faciat et similiter ad requiem eos deducat 
tempestive, specialiter quando sunt religiosi et devoti, nec 
faciliter eos permittat sine causa diu ultra octavam expectare, 
ut et ipse sibi ipsi vacare possit. Et ideo consuescat queque 
agenda cum tranquillitate, hilaritate, et maturitate sic expedite 
perficere, ut et ipse operi manuum cum ceteris possit insistere, 
ne sub pallio officii fabulacionibus ociose tempts suum perdat. 


; De portario XX 


Unus de fratribus acceptis, per rectorem designatus, custodit 
portam, qui, quantum fieri poterit, probatus sit moribus, 
benignus et affabilis. [fol. 252] Hic portam omni tempore 
Be arent a gab hie do sg teneat. Ergo.apud portam’..i2:.2. 7A: 
nec longam moram facturus inde’....°..!.:......., alum/yyice 
Suid orelinduats sh uicymacnopere: y. on. s2e eee dum est, ne adve- 
nientes de foris aliquo modo contristet. Vagos et mendicos 
seculi nequaquam intromittat ad hospitandum, nec eciam re- 
ligiosos vagos non observantes, sine socio venientes sine 
evidenti necessitate absque licencia rectoris inducat, sed eos 
maxime quorum specialis noticia non habetur. Portam ante- 
riorem claudere debet in hyeme secundum plus vel minus, 
prout tenebre diem obscuraverint, in longioribus autem diebus 
et in estate semper hora octava, nisi legitimo impedimento 
aliud intervenerit. Miane autem aperiendi tempus erit in hyeme, 
quando clarum mane illucessit, in estate vero et in longioribus 
diebus circa quintam horam, nisi eciam aliud intervenerit. 
Temporibus meridianis, quando fratres dormiunt, manente porta 
tunc precipue clausa neminem sine evidenti [fol. 25>] necessitate 
intromittet. Feminas autem quocumque ..... a aids Sthde ae : 
de causa sine speciali licencia rectoris nequaquam ingredi 
permittat. Ista et alia non expressa domus nostre officia possunt 
per rectorem unum, duo vel pluria alicui uni ydoneo committi, 
secundum quod noverit expedire. Officiales proinde fratres, 
secundum quod eis a rectore iniungitur, debent humiliter et 
fideliter sua officia exequi et ex caritate servire fratribus, 
sperantes, se maiorem tanto apud Deum mercedem habituros, 
quanto eorum ministerium laboriosius et humilius comprobatur. 
Qui ut eo melius officia sua iuxta consuetum in domo modum 
exsequi possint, cedulas per quas in opere suo dirigantur sibi 
dari et ordinari petant et procurent. Isti, si de negociis suis 
in aliquo duwbitant, habebunt recursum ad procuratorem, cui 


APPENDIX 459 


eciam ex caritate debent humiliter obedire. Et licet illis qui 
humiliorem in domo nostra commissionem habuerint conveniat 
voluntarium sacrificium [fol. 264] suum fratribus exhibere cum 
omni humilitate, ipsos tamen fratres alios non decet inferiores 
suos estimare, qui pari caritate cum eis ad communiter et 
socialiter convivendum sunt assumpti. Et ideo, si aliquis eorum 
opere indiguerit, non debet preceptorie exigere, sed humiliter 
postulare. Nec eciam alii fratres qui non habent commissionem 
de officiis eorum se debent intromittere, nisi quod si negligenciam 
aliquam notaverint, possunt eos sicut ‘alios ammonere. 


De visitacione 


Visum est nobis expedire pro domo nostra, ut semel in anno 
advocemus presbiteros duos rectores congregacionum, qui nobis 
in colloquio patrum designati fuerint, de quibus presumimus 
specialem fidelitatem ad domum et statum nostrum, qui loquantur 
cum rectore et fratribus nostris de hiis que concernunt pacem, 
concordiam, et profectum nostrum. Cum quibus eciam capiemus 
consilium, si que occurrent negocia ardua, in quibus consilio 
indigemus. Quot si rector domus fortasse [fol. 26%] deponendus 
Sit-et alter in loco eis ordinandus eorum (0.1.5 1s. des lees 
et consilio. Ad primum ergo, cum advenerint, convocent omnes 
fratres simul, intimando eis causam adventus sui, quoniam 
vocati in caritate venerint, parati, si quid possent pro utilitate 
et profectu fratrum, habentes ammonitos fratres, ut unusquisque 
libere aperiat cor suum et respondeat ad ea de quibus fuerit 
requisitus, prout sibi constat, Loquantur deinde primum cum 
rectore de pace sua, de statu domus et fratrum, et an sit 
gravatus alicuius nimia insolencia vel rebellione, et an sit domus 
gravata debitis. Consequenter loquantur cum fratribus singil- 
latim, incipiendo a senioribus, investigantes quoniam sint in 
pace in semetipsis cum rectore et cum fratribus, et an constet 
eis de alicuius notabili pertinacia vel insolencia, vel de discordia 
aliqua in domo, an ne res et excercicia domus excedant in nimia 
laxacione vel in rigore nimio et sic de similibus. [fol. 278] Et 
videtur expedire quod permittatur unusquisque libere dicere que 
videntur ad dicendum necessaria vel utilia, nec multum res- 
pondeatur unicuique super motivis suis, nisi ad plenum omnibus 
auditis, et signentur motiva uniuscuiusque, que sunt alicuius 
ponderis. Caveant tamen fratres, ne ex passione aliquid pro- 
ponant, ne per motiva sua magis turbacionem excitent quam 
profectum. Ipsi eciam patres caucius hoc discernant; alias enim 
contingeret, vicia magis foveri quam deleri. Preterea omnibus 
auditis iterum advocent illos qui in singulari ammonendi vel 
corripiendi videntur. Post hoc omnes simul convocent faciendo 
eis ammonicionem aliquam salubrem in genere de hiis que 
notate sunt profectui fratrum convenire, ut post istam caritativam 
visitacionem remaneat maior pax et concordia inter fratres, 
maior obediencia et promptitudo uniuscuiusque ad profectum 
suum. Sed ne minus quam iustum sit fratres ponderent actus 
et excercicia visitacionis [fol. 27>] ..... SAR A RAL . diligencius 


460 APPENDIX 


et sollicicius custo ..... sR eo Ae .... per patres inserimus hic 
CU aed Sete eens clausulam de auctoritate visitatorum inter 
privilegia domini Episcopi Traiectensis. domui nostre indulta, 
que sequitur in hec verba: “Preterea, ut virtutes inter vos 
floreant et vicia suppremantur, tenore presencium committimus 
ac concedimus auctoritate nostra ordinaria visitatoribus domus 
vestre presentibus et futuris plenariam potestatem, vos et domum 
vestram visitandi, excessts personarum tam in capite quam in 
membris corrigendi ac penitenciam salutarem pro commissis 
aut ex causa legitima, quociens oportunum fuerit, iniungendi 
omniaque et singula faciendi que ad officium visitacionis per- 
tinerent, dinoscuntur, quorum visitatorum consilio statuta et 
consuetudines statui et domui vestris deservientes condere, 
illam seu illas in toto vel in parte tollere et [fol. 288] loco 


PM atONIns Veli Sliplate 02 ia soe we! ees BOOS eee aes ee edere 
sive/istathere) Lillis que cadde. oh. ada |: neal ds So eee cipere. 
Transgressores que consuetudin ....... veins bse AUxte penpebtars 


delicti exigenciam nostra auctoritate ordinaria  corrigere’. 
Sequitur 


De colloquio mensurno XXII 


In principio cuiuslibet mensis, quando primum ad hoc yacare 
possumus, solent fratres qui acceptati sunt, vel alias a communi 
colloquio non segregati, convenire aliqua hora, quam rector 
ipsis designat et colloqui de hiis que deserviunt domui et statui 
nostris; pro tunc enim movet unusquisque siggillatim quod pro 
utilitate domus et status nostri dignum mocione excogitavit, 
specialiter si circa aliquas consuetudines domus observandas 
fratres sunt negligentes, ut in hiis ammoneantur, ‘vel. si res 
domus nostre neglici vel deperire videantur, ut ad hoc respectus 
adhibeatur, vel si rector domus nostre minus circa exercicia 
fratrum invigilat, ut puta in humiliando eos, [fol. 28>] vel 
frangendo eorum voluntates, vel increpando eos de defectibus 
et similia excercendo, per que proficere possent in extirpacione 
viciorum, ut si quacumque causa hoc intermiserit, fiat eorum 
mocione et desiderio ad hoc liberior et diligencior in hiis et 
similibus movendis, servetur debita disciplina et modestia, ne 
alique dissenciones insurgant, et caveat quilibet, ne in sensu suo 
habundans vicium partinacie vel proprii sensus incurrat, ne 
collacio, que profectui nostro deservire debuerat, in profectus 
nostri detrimentum cedat. In ista collacione potest rector domus 
ad motiva fratrum per se respondere secundum quod sibi videbi- 
tur, ut fiat, nisi idem secundo et tercio motum fuerit, tune enim 
debet scrutari vota fratrum, et quid faciendum videbitur eorum 
agere consilio. Si eciam pro tunc aliquid de principalioribus 
negociis domus motum fuerit, fiat [fol. 294] quod maiori et 
sanjori parti fratrum videbitur expedire. Sequitur 


De consiliis et principalioribus negociis 


Quia premissum est quod rector principalia negocia domus 
faciet de consilio fratrum vel maioris et sanioris partis eorum, 


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APPENDIX 461 


sunt ergo ista que habemus pro principalibus negociis’ domus 
nostre. In primis, si rector domus nostre est apponendus vel 
deponendus, quod fiat per modum superius tactum. Item si 
aliquis acceptandus est ad manendum nobiscum in domo 
perpetue, vel qui acceptatus est videtur perpetue expellendus. 
Item si predia redditus, vel alie res immobiles emende vel. 
vendende sunt. Item si aliquis procurator constituendus est vel 
constitutus deponendus. Item si aliqua res immobilis ultra 
valorem quatuor scudatorum alicui danda est. Item si aliquid 
ultra unam libram grossorum edificandum est. Item si que sunt 
alie cause notabilem permianentem [fol. 29>] utilitatem vel 
inutilitatem tangentes consimili modo fiant de consilio rectoris 
et fratrum, vel maioris et sanioris partis eorum. Sed ex quo 
sepissime incertum est et dubiosum, que causa notabilem 
utilitatem vel inutilitatem in se habent, cum ex parvis occasion- 
ibus aliquando magna et permanens utilitas vel inutilitas 
Originem trahat, et unus res levius ponderat et alter gravius, 
ergo volumus pro maiori certitudine et utilitate hoc ponere in 
discrecione rectoris, ut ipse discernat de hiis rebus vel causis 
emergentibus et secundum suum videre de hiis loquatur vel 
supersedeat, ut utilitas promoveatur et inutilitas precaveatur. 
Consulcius eciam videtur quod non leviter per voces certatim 
aliquid concludamus, pocius si negocium dilacionem patitur, cum 
vota fratrum sibi non concordant, ad deliberacionem maturiorem 
differatur. Si tamen aliquo tempore necessarium fuerit per voces 
aliquid concludi, tunc [fol. 304] rector domus per se duas voces 
habeat, ad cuius eciam videre et ad eius raciones notabilem 
respectum habebunt fratres. Illi enim qui preest in sollicitudine 
sepius melius constat de circumstanciis rerum, nec videtur 
carere vicio elacionis, qui ad contradicendum vel ad minus 
acquiescendum rectori suo in negociis plerumque in differen- 
tibus se assuescit. Istis attentis sint tamen fratres liberi ad 
dicendum cum debita humilitate, quod eis pro honore Dei 
videbitur expedire. Ut autem eo diucius in fratribus noviter 
assumptis permaneat simplicitas verecunda, stabunt contenti 
clerici, si de omnibus infra aliquos annos, vel si sint laici semper 
non requirantur vota eorum2* et nunquam intererunt layci 
colloquiis fratrum aut colloquio mensurno nec in parte, nec in 
toto, nec multum commendetur ipsis sive de officiis sive 
vendendis et emendis. Ac eciam consulitur de colloquio 
mensurno pro maiori conservacione discipline, ut clerici exeant 
suis motivis dictis usque ad sacerdocium; similiter et tempore 
capituli exeant suis defectibus auditis usque sacerdocium?‘, 
Sequitur 


De suscepcio noviciorum 


In suscipiendis personis domus summa caucio habenda est, 
ut harum numerus sit secundum correquisita et facultatem 
domus nostre, laici unus vel duo et ad magis tres. Cum ergo 
vacaverit in domio nostra locus et instancius et persue?® [fol. 30>] 
ae ree pecierit aliquis nobiscum habitare, considerentur 


462 APPENDIX 


primo diligencius circumstancie persone, si sit virtuosus, dicibilis, 
competentis litterature, ad mints congruus, si sit facetus in 
moribus, satis fortis capitis et pectoris, an sciat et possit scribere, 
cuius fervoris et conversacionis in ante acta vita sua, an sit 
aptus ad communia exercicia domus nostre et ad hec voluntarius 
et promptus, an sit gravatus cura parentum suorum debilium 
vel pauperum. Secundo quod super omnia caveatur a symonia 
et turpi lucro, ne corde aut ore aut quoquomodo aliquid temporale 
a quocumque vel pro quocumque assumendo petatur aut 
exigatur, sed pure propter Deum recipiatur, sive pauper sive 
dives fuerit?6. Cum de hiis fuerimus mundi et de predictis alliis 
et similibus condicionibus habuerimus probabilem coniecturam, 
possumus eum admittere ad nostram societatem et hospicium 
et probare per duos menses aut tres. Si vero infra illud tempus 
[fol. 314] eius conversacionem considerantes  verisimiliter 


putaverimus eum non convenire sibi et nobis, statim remittatur 


ad locum suum, vel promoveatur, si in nobis est, ad locum magis 
sibi congruentem, quia utilius et minus confusivum tam sibi 
quam nobis quod recessurus ad primum recedat. Et ideo, qui 
difficiliter amonibilis putaretur ab hospicio, non leviter admit- 
tatur. Si vero conversacio eius placuerit fratribus, nichilominus 
non recipiatur ad communem vitam nostram, nisi pritis per 
decem vel duodecim menses laudabiliter nobiscum fuerit conver- 
satus, infra quod tempus considerent eum fratres diligenter, 
an propositum eius sit firmum et ad anteriora extentum 
probetur, an possit et velit suffere correpciones et humiliaciones, 
an sit promptus ad obediendum in quibuscumque vilibus et 
humilibus et sic de aliis bonis moribus vite nostre premissis, 
demum si eciam sit apertus in revelandis temptacionibus suis 
et per silencium quietus. Sequitur 


De institucione noviciorum XXXV 


Ut autem de predictis plenius innotescat [fol. 31>] ......7... 
Se ate . uni e+fratribus. bont testimonti-.2\:. 1.20. se es eaten 
eum ‘instruat de incessu inclinacio 6. .0....00.05..,.. statu et 
omni gestu suo, quomodo debeat oculos dimissos et custoditos 
habere, submisse, verecunde, et mon festinanter loqui et 
reverenciam maxime rectori exhibere. Precipue ammonebit 
eum frequenter, ut mores et consuetudines seculares studeat 
dediscere, propriam quoque voluntatem et proprium consilium 
propter bonum obediencie mortificare, humilia queque et viliora 
et quosque labores libenter amplectendo, quod ut perfectius 
consequi valeat, tamquam mortuus mundo et sibi ipsi; de multis 
rebus forensibus seu negociis domus privatim aut publice se 
aliquo modo intromittat. Soli Deo vivere, querens celle et 
quietis sue studiosus observator, ocio torpere refugiat, lectionibus 
sacris et oracionibus et compunctioni cordis et meditacionibus 
sanctis vel eciam laboribus manuum in cella seu foris, prout 
fuerit, sibi innittum, secundum modum vite nostre et consue- 
tudines domus insistendo seu ea discendo, [fol. 329] Et ut 
salubrins6ibt, 0 Cy quascumque et secreta cordis sui 


APPENDIX 463 


Rraleeis as ase Sica AEs PAAR suam sepitis rectori sive magistro suo 
i ARON age ... debet. Nec quitquam habeat quod rectori vel 
THATIStEO; .e) & ...e... Welit esse occultum, nec debat colloquiis 


aliorum aut operibus se ultro ingerere, sed omnibus honorem 
deferendo, vix audeat aliquid coram aliis proferre et ad interro- 
gata respondere et hoc paucis verbis fiat. Ad communes vero 
conventus ubi ipsum oportet presentem existere maxime ad 
officium divinum die noctuque tota alacritate et fervore spiritus 
assuescat devotus et tempestive occurrere. Debet eciam magister 
suus quotidianam eius conversacionem et, si quid magis vel 
minus quam oportet egerit, frequenter considerare, ut eum 
secrete coripiat et instruat humiliter suam culpam confiteri, ut 
oportet. Diligenter proinde eum instruat modum vite nostre et 
mores ad hoc deservientes tenere et negligencias cavere et pro 
eis venias et penitencias, uc moris est, cum prompta humilitate 
rie ey Sr-40) Nie eee ar ar tl Ps patie ke alicui fratri. Ymmo quicumque 
LO DOE Wier l cnchoosie a ate silencio aut’ dicendo Deo +.>..).7%. ; 
humiliter et caritative caput discat inclinare cum serenitate. 
Cum eciam ipse novicius vel quicumque alius frater cellam 
intraverit alterius, debet, quicumque sit intrans, dicere Ihesus 
et bonum punctum aliquem de materia diei et hoc diligenter 
observetur et exiens petat similiter oracionem. Sequitur 


De acceptacione noviciorum 


Cum ee novus aliquis ad probam susceptus, ut premissum 
est, probatus inventus fuerit et desideraverit instancius ad domum 
nostram et soOcietatem acceptari, debet ad videre rectoris per 
eum aut magistrum suum informari, ut ipsi rectori et singulis 
fratribus singillatim in privato provolutus in genibus petat 
humiliter, et graciam ei et misericordiam velit facere dando sibi 
locum in hac domo nostra et quamvis non meruerit, promittens 
se cum adiutorio Dei valde emendaturum. Ammonendus est 
eciam talis acceptandus, ut antequam acceptetur promittat27 
[fol. 332] in privato omnipotenti Deo beatissim ................ 
sancto Paulo apostolo et OmmMibusesanctiss aaeeirecs RARE ER ee ta 
continenciam carnis non quod cogere vol ......... Beast 
obligari ad hoc, sed ut servetur bona consuetudo de hoe ab 
inicio in domo hac servata, neminem scilicet posse per nos 
acceptari ad domum istam, qui hanc continenciam, ut prefertur, 
non promiserit. Et cum ista fecerit advenienti oportuno tempore, 
quo fratres in unum convenerint, fiet primo inquisicio de 
consensu et voluntate fratrum de huiusmodi acceptando, et ut 
singuli quod noverint dicant, ipsi ea que notabilia sunt ammo- 
nenda et tunc, si rectori et fratribus, vel maiori et saniori parti 
eorum super hoc requisitis videatur ammiendttm, debet accep- 
tandus vocari, ut veniat in medium fratrum prostratus ad 
genua. Cui cum rector dixerit: “Quid est frater, quod petis?” 
Respondebit: ‘‘Postulo misericordiam Dei et vestram fraterni- 
tatem michi dari”. Ad quod poterit rector dicere: “Bonum erit 
forsan diucius et melius vos deliberari”. Si tunc constanter 
LEIGH ATO ial hav it wie) «2.cboreen ys .seees. Tune per rectorem 


464 APPENDIX 


PLEdiCelur aie seen htaeieo mle loots ate et quod secundum eundem 
oportebit eum ADIOS a ae eats Domini ewangelicum se 
ipsum propriam yoluntatem et proprium consilium in obediencia 
caritatis secundum voluntatem rectoris et fratrum, sine tamen 
voto obedire ex consilio, nec aliquid proprium more primitive 
ecclesie habere, in castitate et ceteris virtutibus studere vivere, 
et sic de aliis similibus. Fiet ei eciam tunc per rectorem talis 
ammonicio, que ei pro futura summa28 emendacione possit pro- 
ficere, et dicatur sibi precipue id quod fratribus tunc prius super 
hoc interrogatis ammonendum videatur. Demum interrogetur 
per rectorem, si sit liber et non servus, si de aliqua ieee pec pe: 
vel conventu exierit, si alicui mulieri fidem sposponderit,. s 

aliquo voto sit obligatus et absque aliquo morbo incurabili ot 
occulto, si sit absolutus de querelis et debitis universis, si sit 
legitimus, et ad omnes sacros ordines qui clericus est possit 
promoveri, demum si velit in hoc consentire quod [fol. 343] 
post hance horam absque rectore ..... Sete or 
votum emittet, si forsan quod abs .......... : 
hoc nullum sit et irritum ad videre ...... Ee AK neti ts.) 
Requiratur insuper, Si paratus sit deinceps, ut ‘supra “dicitur, 
sine propriis vivere et propterea infra mensen facere recognici- 
onem coram notario et testibus quod nichil proprietatis vel 
dominii habeat in domo vel in rebus domus et quod, si 
recesserit aut expulsus propter legitimas causas in sequenti 
capitulo dicendas aut iussus fuerit exire, quod non debeat 
repetere aliquid eorum, que ex parte eius domui provenerunt, 
nichil secum auferendo, vel repetendo nisi vestimenta sua 
quotidiana, quoniam tune cum pace discedat. Et facere velit 
talem donacionem quod heredes sui non habeant ius. vexandi 
fratres aut ipse vel quelibet persona ex parte sui post eits 
recessum vel obitum; propterea ergo debet per instrumentum 
coram notario et testibus resignare et donare donacionem, que 
dicitur, inter vivos omnia, que habet aut habiturus est aliquando 


per hereditatem testamentum [fol. 34>] ........ sive per modum 
possibilem quemcumque ............. wee. ade hoc nos; exettet 
consilium .............. ewangelicum sed et sancta paupertas, 


qua nichil fratres proprii iuvet et fortificet nos secundum 
secundum sancti apostoli dictum manere in vocacione qua vocati 
sumus in hac domo nostra et instabiles nullum commodum 
temporalium comperiant societatem nostram devotam deserendo. 
Item ad videre rectoris possunt queri in acceptacione tam clerici 
quam layci cui vel quibus resignare intendunt sua bona et 
sumantur fratres assistentes in testes responsionum suorum 
He atin Rar ti ea Ai ik ........ liberam voluntatem resignandi 


DOtha wtata ats APMC ieee Me aE aes voluerit propter symoniam 
MAP RSUCRALIY Stig elie iets ..... gratitudinem debitam exhibere 
fratribus pro eo quod ad BaP IN: Pree ee . acceptati sint et 


sustentandi ab ipsis quamdiu inibi vixerint?9. Deinde interro- 
getur et proponat sibi rector sequens capitulum singillatim, 
scilicet propter que reiciendus sit, si ad hec omnia pronus 
consenciat, et si sit laycus, quod ultra hec predicta contentari 


; é ‘e ‘ } | oe 
in 4? badd 
(a (esr jn penpt : nc fi 
. Mer on. i ely 








APPENDIX 465 


velit, quod numquam habeat vocem inter fratres aut alias? ubi 
vocetur, ut moris est. Quod si ad hec et alia sibi proponenda 
bene animatus responderit, se sine difficultate ultimo libenter 
obtemperaturum et per Dei graciam et adiutorium fratrum 
gratuite executurum et humiliter dando manum rectori si rectori 
placet, se miser [?] ad singulare [?]31. Tunc fratres ad genua 
provoluti legant ymnum “Veni creator’, aut antiphona “Veni 
sancte spiritus”, cum versiculo “Confirma hoc Deus”: “Deus, 
cui patet omne cor et quem nullum latet secretum, purifica per 
infusionem sancti spiritus cogitaciones cordis nostri, ut perfecte 
te diligere et digne laudare valeamus”. Acceptentur secundum 
formam cedularem hic impositarum: [fol. 354]. 

RTM TeTLOUIEY LAOMING CRIES te ire ke cablouas sneer et 
per intercessionem sanctissime Dei genitricis SPM iw trae eee a SAE 
auxilium nobis superne virtutis impende. Excita, | quesumus, 
Domine, in nobis spiritum, cui beatissimus apostolus tuus 
Paulus®? servivit, ut eodem nos replente studeamus amare quod 
amavit, et opere exercere quod docuit. Da, quesumus, Domine, 
perseverantem in tua nobis voluntatem famulatum, ut in diebus 
nostris populus tibi serviens et numero et merito augeatur, per 
Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen”, Post residentibus fratribus 
ipsi adhuc in genibus persistenti dicat rector: “Ad honorem 
omnipotentis Dei, beatissime virginis Marie, sanctissimi Pauli33, 
patroni nostri, et omnium sanctorum recipimus te de hospite in 
fratrem et membrum domus et damus tibi locum in hac domo 
nostra et societate devota, ac participacionem omnium bonorum 
nostrorum temporalium et spiritualium. In nomine patris et 
filii et spiritus sancti. Amen”. Nunc videat sic acceptus quod 
pro gratitudine gracie sibi facte et nunc et semper gratus sit 
fratribus opere et verbo. Sequitur 


; Propter que videtur aliquis reiciendus 


[fol. 35] Non est dicendus prudens pastor qui pocius totum 
gregem infectionis periculo vult exponere, quam unam ovyem 
morbidam a grege seperare; nec est dicendus misericors qui 
in tocius congregacionis detrimentum sustineri vult fratrem 
quantumlibet viciosum. Debemus enim, ut ait beatus Gregorius, 
districtionem viciis compassionem nature. Hac de causa pro 
pena carcereali, quam non habemus, deliberavimus inter nos, 
quod si aliquis frater domus nostre, quod absit, a bono proposito 
suo averteretur et interpesceret, quod circa emendacionem vite 
sue et consuetudines domus omnino negligens existeret, vel si 
aliquis contra rectorem et fratres rebellere et obstinacem sine 
notabili emenda se exhiberet, et in hoc perduraret, vel si aliquis 
proprietatis infidelitate societatem nostram maculare presumeret, 
ille secundo ac tercio a rectore in presencia fratrum ammoneri 
et corripi seriose deberet, et si nullam emendacionem efficacem 
promitteret, a societate nostra per rectorem et fratres reiciendus 
[fol. 368] esset. Si vero aliquis, quod absit, in lapsum carnis 
incideret, vel si conatus ad hoc perpetrandum exquireret, vel 
alia manifesta et scandalosa malefacta perpetraret, ex quibus 


466 APPENDIX 


totam congregacionem nostram confusionem et derogacionem 
“notabilem sustinere contingeret, vel si personalibus debitis vel 
fideiussionibus se et domum nostram sine scitu et consensu 
rectoris et fratrum gravaret, maxime non habens officium, vel 
si societatem deserens nostram ad alia loca se transferret, ille 
statim omne ius, quod in domo et societate nostra habuisset, 
amitteret. Sequitur 


De caritate XXVIII 
Licet cum omnibus hominibus, quantum in nobis est, pacem 


et caritatem servare teneamur, precipue tamen ad invicem inter: 


nos studebimus, habere cor unum et animam unam, unum velle 
et unum nolle in bono. Et ergo ut pax, caritas, et concordia 
inter nos inviolate permaneant, nitemur ad illa, per que servari 
et nutriri possit [fol. 36°] concordia caritatis, studebimus honore 
invicem prevenire, alter alterius onora portare, cum gaudentibus 
gaudere et cum flentibus flere, infirmitates aliorum, tam morum 
quam corporum, pacienter ferre, vitabimus mutuas offensas, 
derisiones, detractiones, et pertinaces contradictiones. In quibus, 
si aliquis alium offenderit, debet humiliter indulgenciam postu- 
lare. Sola enim humilitas, ut ait Bernardus, est reparacio lese 
caritatis. Expedit eciam vitare singulares continuas familiaritates 
vel personarum accepciones, que interdum suspicione carnalis 
affectionis non carent, sed vigeat et servetur inter nos una 
communis caritas, que persuadet aliquando hiis qui nobis aliquo 
modo contrarii putantur, se magis affabilem et obsequiosum 
exhibere. 


[De humilitate XXIX] 


De humilitate dicit Bernardus: “Hec est via et non est alia 
preter eam. Qui aliter vadit, cadit pocius quam ascendit, 
[fol. 374] quia sola humilitas est que exaltat, sola que ducit ad 
vitam”. Quia igitur humiliacio via est ad humilitatem, sicut 
lectio ad scienciam, idcirco proposuimus humilem ducere vitam 
in habitu, in gestibus, in moribus, in edificiis, in suppellectili 
domus nostre, ut, licet habeamus illa ut decent et conveniunt, 
absit tamen curiositas atque venustas. Eligant semper fratres, 
quantum in ipsis est, humiliorem statum tamquam tuciorem, 
scientes quod non in altitudine status, sed in puritate mentis 
acquiritur regnum Dei. Non solum autem in statu, sed eciam in 
quibuslibet aliis, videlicet in cameris, in utensilibus, in officiis, 
eligat et requirat unusquisque quod vilius et humilius est, ut sic 
per humiliacionem corporis introducatur humilitas cordis. Con- 
suevimus eciam pro humiliacione habere aliqua excercicia humili- 
tatis, videlicet per vices quisque debet lavare vasa coquine, ut 
moris est, et cetera. Item petere veniam, cum nostra negligencia 
aliquid fuerit destructum, [fol. 374] vel amissum, quod excedit 
vahorem quartali de:.............. stufero, vel cum negligentes 
fuerimus in observancia alicuius bone consuetudinis, que sub 
pena alicuius venie nobis fuerit imposita, vel commissa, ut eciam 
postea in fine libri patebit. 





Pree ee eee 


“ 


APPENDIX 467 


[De obediencia XXX] : 


Ne vero illius virtutis merito et premio fraudari nos contingat, 
cuius in se formam fidelibus Unigenitus Dei exhibuit, qui factus 
est obediens usque ad mortem et dixit: “Non veni facere 
voluntatem meam, sed eius qui misit me”; idcirco proponimus 
iura obediencie sollicite observare, in primis Dei preceptis et 
ecclesie nec non prelatorum nostrorum jac eciam sacris canonibus 
pro posse et nosse humiliter obedire. Insuper presbiteri nostri 
qui patrisfamilias loco regimen domus habet commissum monitis 
et consilliis voluntarie acquiescere, iuxta consilium beati Petri: 
“Castificantes corda nostra in obediencia caritatis”, de cuius 
consilio convenit unumquemque nostrum in ordinacione vite 
sue pendere, eius ammoniciones libenter audire, [fol. 384] eius 
correpciones pacienter sufferre. Ei nec parvum nec magnum 
quod inter nos geritur debemus velle esse occultum. Ad eum 
in temptacionibus, perplexitatibus, et adversatitibus?4 nostris 
continuum debemus habere recursum. Et licet nichil speciale 
occurrat, quater tamen in anno habet quilibet fratrum cum 
rectore singulare colloquium de passionibus anime sue, petendo 
ab eo, ut liber sit ad corripiendum vel eciam exercitandum eum, 
prout notaverit sibi pro profectu suo spirituali expedire. Sequitur 


De communi vita et paupertate XXXI 


Quoniam dicit Augustinus quod inter familiares amicos debet 
esse communitas eventuum, non enim debet esse dispar eventus, 
quorum est compar affectus, nec diversa fortuna, quorum una 
est anima; idcirco pro lexhibicione et (conservacione mutue 
caritatis, nec non pro exoneracione quotidiane sollicitudinis, 
simul eciam pro adimplecione illius consilii ewangelici de 
abrenunciandis omnibus que [fol. 38] possidemus, ad honorem 
Dei proposuimus in domo nostra abdicare omnem proprietatem, 
ita quod nullus nostrum proprium aliquid possideat, sed sint 
nobis omnia communia. Sit communis bursa, sit communis 
archa, sit mensa et provisio communis, nisi quod provideatur 
unicuique, prout cuique opus existit. Quod autem communis 
vita extra religionem non solum licita, sed eciam meritoria et 
expediens sit proficere volentibus in via Dei, de hoc habemus 
scripta sufficiencia diversorum doctorum, qui hoc probant per 
illra, per raciones, per autoritates sanctorum, maxime cum 
presbiteri et clerici secundum iura deberent vivere in communi, 
intendimus igitur ex hoc et deinceps libera et plena voluntate 
hoc observare et temporalia in commune proferre, contenti de 
provisione nobis facienda, nec murmurare, si non habuerimus 
omnia nostra comoda’5, ut non simus de illis pauperibus de 
quibus tangit Bernardus: “Sunt aliqui qui volunt esse pauperes; 
eo tamen pacto, ut nichil eis desit; et sic diligunt paupertatem, 
[{fol. 392] ut nullam inopiam paciantur”’. Cavere eciam debemus, 
ne illis rebus quorum nobis usus est concessum, pertinaci affectu 
alligati simus; sed ita studebimus ab amore rei familiaris 
affectum nostrum suspendere, ut si aliquis a rectore missus 


468 ! APPENDIX 


fuerit mutare cameram suvam, statim prompte hoc faciat, nichil 
secum exportando, nisi que ab eo sibi fuerint designata. Ob 
hane eciam causam rector domus consuevit semel in anno, 
videlicet in capite ieiunii, circuire cameras fratrum et videre 
que et qualia habeamus in libris, utensilibus, et aliis quibus- 
cumque, que omnia producemus coram eo, ut, si sibi placuerit 
aliqua tollere, tollat et que placuerit relinquere, relinquat. Nemo 
habebit clausuram in qua res ponuntur, exceptis rectore et 
procuratore et forte librario, si expedit et rectori nichi] abscon- 
datur. Et si quid datur vel offertur alicui a parentibus aut aliis 
caris quibuscumque, scilicet vestis species vel quodcumque aliud, 
primo rectori offeratur in cuius potestate sit ipsi reddere vel 
MOMeTTOUEROT| rel ea yt te eh eee ale . vel eciam alteri dare. 
Item nullus fratrum qui non habuerit ex officio permittet 
aliquas pectinias pernoctare apud se in camera sua, sed si ad 
manus alicuius venerint, deferat ad illum cui ex officio incumbit 
levare easdem. Preterea quia fragilitas et miseria nostra videtur 
exigere competentem provisionem victualium et aliorum necess- 
ariorum, ne tamen nos vel posteri nostri mensuram sufficiencie 
excedant et tot redditus sibi accumulent, ut non necesse habeant 
manttum suarum adiumento victum querere et ab hoc ociositatis 
et vagacitatis pericula contingat incidere, idcirco proponimus 
firmiter quod nobis et posteris nostris, quod in annuis perpetuis 
redditibus summam centum nobilium pro personis domus nostre 
nequaquam volumus excedere. Sed si contingat post hoc aliqua 
bona ad nos devolvi, possumus unam terciam partem de hiis 
ad librariam nostram deputare, cetera pauperibus volumus 
erogare. Quod si propter frequenciam hospitum, vel eciam 
propter casum alicuius infortunii contingat, nos debitis notabili- 
bus pregravari, [fol. 402] vel eciam defectum pateremur in 
congrua necessaria structura aliqua, si quid tunc de bonis ad 
nos devolvendis in illos usus deputandum est, fiat cum bono 
moderamine pauperes Christi non tamen obliviscendo in parte 
saltim alique bona. Sequitur 


De castitate XXXII 


Ut perpetuam continenciam, que a nobis exigatur, semper 
inviolatam custodiamus, et ne umquam _ sinistra de aliquo 
nostrum suspicio oriatur, pro custodia castitatis volumus, ut 
sicut hactenus sic et semper omnem mulierem de domo nostra 
arceamus et eas ad nos intrare non sinamus; sed si cum aliqua 
loquendum est, ante portam fiat cum licencia rectoris, vel si alias 
aliqua femina nos allocuta fuerit, caveamus, ne intente aliquam 
inspiciamus, vel nimis blande in colloquiis cum ipsis non 
habeamus sed quanto brevius nos expediamus. Nam iuxta 
verbum beati Augustini, ‘cum mulieribus brevis sermo et rigidus 
habendus est”. Quot si fratrem aliquem existentem extra domum 
aliqua femina alloquatur, cum paucis verbis satisfaciat alloquenti, 
et postea accedat ad rectorem et dicat .ei, quod illa talis eum 
allocuta -fuit, et si requisierit rector, quid cum eo tractaverit, 
dicat ei [fol. 40] nichil ex proposito occultando. Si vero tale 





APPENDIX 469 


sit negocium,.quod solum respiciat officium alicuius fratris, tunc 
sufficit eidem referre. Rectore vero absente, vicem ecius in hac 
parte tenebit procurator vel senior presbiter domus_ nostre. 
Ante portam loquentes cum aliqua non sedeant, sed stantes 
loquantur, excepto cum matre vel sorore, nisi de hoc speciale 
licenciam tunc habeant, quando causa necessaria sive digna 
requirit, et semper brevitati studeant. Pro maiori eciam cautela 
proposmimustetwvolumus: quod Nemo. vs... 56s 2 ost ed eee 
scolares sive iuvenes visitantes seu non visi 
plures apud se clausis ianuis?®, 


De sobrietate XXXIII 


Qui castus esse desiderat studeat sobrietati. Caveamus ergo, 
ne metas sobrietatis excedamus et voluptatibus gule inserviamus, 
sed magis, quantum valitudo permittit, corpus nostrum discrete 
castigemus et in servitutem redigamus, et ideo a vino et 
assaturis, necnon exquisitis et sumptuosis condimentis ciborum 
abstineamus. In aliquibus tamen summis festivitatibus et 
tempore minucionis, vel quando nobis ob graciam aliquam 
propinatur vinum, possumus habere et assaturos; pro hospitibus 
providebimus eadem que pro fratribus, quia ex hoc magis 
edificantur; quod si utile videatur alia providere, fiat de scitu 
rectoris servata debita simplicitate, que nos decet. Circa festa 
communicabilia volumus nos per aliquam ab- [fol. 418] stinen- 
ciam preparare, ita quod non commedamus carnes ad minus 
per tres dies, nisi forte festum Epiphanie, vel Marie Magdalene 
in quarta feria venerit, ut tunc propter dominicam diem carnes 
commedamus, vel eciam circa festum Visitacionis fuerit nobis 
concessum commedere carnes in die apostolorum propter festum. 
Aut quod rector eciam liter circa talia festa cum esu carnium 
pie dispensaverit. Item preter vigiliam diei communicabilis ad- 
huc una die illius tridui erimus sine cena, nisi propter aliquam 
racionabilem causam fuerit nobis concessa cena de _ licencia 
rectoris. Item circa festum Penthecostes a feria secunda usque 
diem sanctum erimus sine carnibus. Item circa festum Assump- 
cionis et Omnium Sanctorum abstinebimus a carnibus per 
quatuor dies et post dominicam quinquagesime abstinebimus a 
carnibus. Item in quatuor temporibus et vigiliis sanctorum et 
in profestis beate Virginis non commedemus butirum exceptis 
profestis purificacionis et visitacionis eiusdem3?. Item in adventu 
Domini non commedemus carnes et ieiunabimus sine cena tribus 
diebus in septimana. Item in feria sexta non soluamus ieiunium, 
nisi moveat causa satis digna, ut loco specierum aliquid 
gustemus [fol. 41>] de licencia rectoris. Preterea quoniam a 
medio virtutis facile contingit deviare, si fuerit aliquis frater 
sibi nimis rigidus et inpercipiendis alimentis singulariter parcus, 
ille debet ab eo qui considerat ammoneri; et si se non correxerit, 
debet rectori intimari ut ipse habeat eum ammonitum, ne se 
destruat et ad spiritualia et corporalia exercicia se impotentem 
efficiat. Sequitur 


470 APPENDIX 


De silencio [XXXIV] 


Silencium ab inutilibus et ociosis sermonibus et maxime a 
rumoribus seculi detractione et derisione ubique et semper 
servare nos convenit. Quod si de secularibus rebus aliquid 
refertur vel auditur, ad pietatem studeamus referre, sed non in 
talibus ociose tempus expendere. Ceterum aliquibus temporibus 
et locis eciam ab utilibus sermonibus temperare proposuimus, 
videlicet de vespere post octavam horam usque ad sextam 
horam de mane. Omni tempore fratres silencium teneant apud 
ignem, similiter in loco et tempore rasure, quod si necessario 
aliquid dicendum fuerit, pauci et submissa voce fiat. Eciam 
ante et post Jcommede[n]tes in refectorio vitabunt summe 
confabulaciones. In refectorio similiter vitabimus quocumque 
tempore [fol. 424] colloquia non necessaria. Item precipue in 
coquina vitabimus colloquia, quam eciam non intremus sine 
licencia rectoris, procuratoris vel coci, si alter eorum fuerit 
presens. Ut eciam Domino Deo devociores occurramus et con- 
ceptam devocionem diticius conservare valeamus, erit silencium 
servandum a tempore, quo pulsatur eundum ad ecclesiam, usque 
dum post divina quisque redierit ad cameram suam, et maxime 
ne ad ecclesiam euntes vel inde revertentes in via quitquam sine 
magna necessitate loquamur, cum gravitate et maturitate in- 
cendentes de bona et laudabili consuetudine. Similiter servamus 
silencium, quando pulsatum est ad refectionem, et cavebimus 
sumopere in via ad mensam aliquid loqui et precipue apud 
lavatorium, dum fratres abluant manus. Dum eciam fratres in 
pistrino convyocati panes coagulant, ut silencium melius servetur, 
solemus legere vigilias, septem psalmos et horas de Domina 
prout occurrit, whi servabitur talis ordo in prelegendo vel alias, 
ut in choro per ebdomadarium vel in thoris de Domina fieri 
consuetum jest. Postremo servabimus similiter silencium in 
tempore et loco quo locio pedum et cetera. [fol. 42>] 


[De oracione XXXV] 


Debemus semper ad manum habere tutissimum oracionis 
refugium, et non solum pro nostris, sed eciam pro aliorum 
necessitatibus devotas preces effundere. Et ideo, quando 
desideratur a nobis, ut Oremus pro aliqua causa pia, puta pro 
aliquo defuncto, vel infirmo, vel temptato, vel pro aliqua alia 
causa instante vel urgente, tunc non debemus hoc negligenter 
permittere excidere a memoria, nec eciam profunctorie et 
superficialiter perficere, sed diligenter, instanter, cordialiter et 
efficaciter pro posse nostro succurrere apud Deum precibus 
nostris hiis, qui tribulato sunt corde, attendentes necessitudinem 
illius, qui gravatus est, et quomodo nos vellemus nobis fieri in 
consimili angustia constitutis. Item quando aliquis fratrum 
nostrorum tam infirmatur, quod non possit visitare ecclesiam, 
tunc quotidie in horis de Domina tam ad matutunas’§ quam ad 
vesperas legemus pro eo collectam “Deus infirmitatis humane”, 
et cetera. Item tempore communionis et sacre inunctionis 





APPENDIX 471 


alicuius infirmi fratris nostri debent adesse cum devocione 
omnes fratres, nisi fuerit tempore pestilenciali. Et post 
inunctionem huiusmodi legent fratres pro infirmo cotidie septem 
psalmos. [fol. 432] Sed si diu duraverit infirmitas sine certa 
spe convalescencie, possunt una die legere psalmos, alia die 
letanias. Et dum aliquis fratrum fuerit in agone constitutus, 
nisi utsupra tempore pestilenciali, ubicumque tunc fratres fuerint, 
dum tabula percussa fuerit, sine mora debent omnes simul 
convenire legentes in via “Credo in Deum” et manebunt iuxta 
infirmum, donec spiritum ex[h]alaverit, dicendo interim septem 
psalmos cum letaniis, et si longa fuerit mora obitus sui, © 
psalterium sine gloria. Et post obitum legemus statim comme- 
dacionis, ut in libro commedacionis habetur, item per octavam 
legemus pariter vigilias novem lectionum et ulterius usque ad 
triginta dies ab obitu quotidie vigias3® trium lectionum et per 
annum quotidie tam ad vesperas quam ad matitunas?§ de Domina 
collectam pro defuncto fratre. Statim post obitum, quando primo 
poterit ad hoc vacari, recipiet quilibet fratrum ex pietate 
disciplinam a rectore pro defuncto fratre. Item de ordinacione 
rectoris cicius, quo fieri poterit, legatur psalterium et terminetur 
sive in choro sive in privato, [fol. 43>] ut ipsi videbitur, Et 
dicent (compleant) singuli presbiteri nostri simul unum tricenar- 
ium, quo primum poterint, pro defuncto fratre. Item in primo 
anniversario fratris nostri defuncti legemus vigilias IX lectionum 
et in sequentibus anniversariis eorum trium lectionum. Item in 
obitu alicuius parentum nostrorum legemus vigilias IX lectionum 
et per octavam trium lectionum et presbiteri compleant simul 
tricenarium missarum et in primo anniversario parentum nostro- 
rum vigilias trium lectionum. Item pro laycis nostris in in- 
firmitate et eciam in obitu eorum faciemus tantum sicut pro 
parentibus fratrum nostrorum*®, Item pro fratribus nostris in 
Delf et in Gouda*! defunctis legemus vigilias trium lectionum 
et per octavam trium lectionum et complebunt sacerdotes nostri 
simul tricenarium. Item pro fratribus et sororibus congrega- 
cionum nostrarum legemus semel vigilias; item pro familiaribus 
et benefactoribus et pro devotis aliorum locorum faciemus sicut 
videbitur ei qui habet curam domus. 


[De cummunione XXXVI] 


Circa festa communicabilia volumus nos preparare per absti- - 
nenciam, ut premissum est. Item ordinabimus, prout melius 
possumus, ut ante maiora festa communicabilia per diem vel 
duos simus quieti a notabilibus occupacionibus sive distractio- 
[fol. 444] nibus, que convenienter differi possunt. Et sunt hec 
consueta festa communionis fratrum: Festum Pasche, Ascens- 
ionis, Penthecostes, Sacramenti, Visitacionis Marie, Marie Mag- 
dalene, Assumpcionis Marie, Dedicacionis ecclesie nostre, sive 
Nativitatis Marie, Michaelis, Omnium Sanctorum, Katherine, 
Concepcionis Marie, Nativitatis Christi, Epiphanie, Conversionis 
sancti Pauli, Agnetis vel Purificacionis Marie, Petri ad cathe- 
dram, si venerit in ieiunio, si non venerit in ieiunio, tune prima 


472 APPENDIX 


dominica in quadragesima, et deinceps singulis dominicis usque 
Pascha, comiputando inter eos Annunciacionem Dominicam et 
alias, cum apparuerit rectori domus pro temporis congruitate 
expedire. In quibus festis nemo nostrum omittat communio- 
nem sine scitu et licencia rectoris. Item circa ista festa, vel ad 
longius circa mensem, persuadebimus clericis et aliis hominibus 
bone voluntatis, qui consueverunt ad nos venire pro consiliis, 
quod faciant confessionem; et qui ydonei sunt, preparent [fol. 
44>] se ad communionem, maxime in summis festis. 


[De ambulantibus XXXVII] 


Fons et origo omnium malorum sunt inutiles discursus. 
Idcirco proposuimus difficiles esse ad reisas excepta causa magna 
necessitatis vel utilitatis. Non permittantur fratres assumere 
reisas extra oppidum et super omnia iuniores et precipue ad 


amicos et cognatos, quia ex talibus frequenter  spiritualis 


profectus tam interioris propositi quam devotorum morum 
accipit detrimentum. Quod tamen cum necesse fuerit, detur illi 
socius vie ydoneus et spiritualis, et quocumque pro negociis 
fuerint vel transierint, nitantur pariter ambularé et omnia 
negocia mutuo revelare. Summe autem caveamus, ne foris 
existentes inedificatorie et seculari modo nos habeamus, ne 
cibum vel potum exquisitum requiramus, ne hincinde diversa, 
que ad negocium nostrum non spectant, circumlustremus, ne 
oculis, auribus et lingue frena laxemus, ut non effusi vani, vacui 
et consciencia gravati et ob hoc minus festivi ad domum 
redeamus. Item semper, quando vacat nobis [fol. 454] hospi- 
cium apud devotos vel religiosos, ad eos accedamus. Extra 
eciam hospicium non commedemus sive quoquam, ubi necesse 
non fuerit, ire debemus sine licencia patris sive rectoris loci. 
Consuetudines domus nostre in horis legendis et materiam diei 
et edificativos mores observare, prout possumus, debemus tam 
in hospiciis quam in plateis et viis. Nec cuiusquam fratris im- 
perfectionem domus nostre extra domum devotis vel secularibus 
recitabimus. Similiter si in reisa fratres vel foris existentes 
aliquorum devotorum vel secularium perceperint aut notaverint 
defectus, cum domum redierint, fratribus domus nostre non 
enarrabunt; et reverti festinabunt attendentes illud ex vitis 
patrum: “Sicut piscis ex aqua eductus statim moritur, ita 
monachus perit, si foras cellam suam tardare voluerit”. Post- 
quam vero domum redierint, racionem reddent negociorum 
peractorum rectori vel procuratori in eius absencia, resignantes 
bursam cum pecuniis, que superfuerunt. Et solent post hoc 
rectori confiteri omnia peccata in reisa [fol. 45>] perpetrata 
non obstante quod habita licencia in remotis ydoneo sacerdoti 
eo confessi sint, nisi ipse rector contentus esse velit de con- 
fessione foris facta. Fratres, qui in via diriguntur, secundum 
doctrinam sancti Epictici benedictionem spiritualis patris re- 
quirant flexis genibus ante eum, que talis est: “Benedictio Dei 


patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti descendat super vos et maneat- 


semper. Amen’. Et illud Thobie: “Sit Dominus in itinere 


a theese 





APPENDIX 473 


vestro et angelus Domini bonus comitetur vobiscum. Amen”. 
Solent eciam fratres per totum tempus reise pro in itinere 
existentibus bis in die orare, ut moris est, legendo collacionem: 
“Adesto Domine supplicacionibus nostris’. Sine magna necessi- 
tate non debent fratres reisas facere in festivis diebus, et 
monentur a foris revertens rumores seculi, ubi audierunt, 
dimittere et fratribus domi non recitare. In arbitrio eciam 
rectoris stabit, coquum vel aliquem alium solum emittere sine 
socio. Preterea visitaciones et negocia ad domos opidi, sive 
sint nobis alieni sive cognati vel noti, vitabimus, prout salvis 
salvandis possumus, ne multum simus molesti rectori domus super 
huiusmodi licencia. [fol. 464]. Et si in heremo cum patribus 
non sumus, faciamus nobis ipsis in nostro habitaculo cum beato 
Ambrosio, celesti doctore, heremum. Et wbi necessitas vel 
utilitas exegerit, cum licencia exire debemus caute et sancte in 
moribus nos custodientes. Dissolutus enim exitus est frequenter 
ab intencione animi concepta peremptorius et mortalis secundum 
Theodorum collacione octava. Ceterum nemo exibit sine speciali 
licencia rectoris et socio sibi ab ipso deputato preter coquum et 
alium ad negocia deputatum et nominetur locus, quo eundum 
sit, et tota causa et nullibi aliorsum transeatur, quod postea 
rectori non dicatur. Item quando mittimur pro negociis in 
opidum, debemus expedite facere facta nostra et redire non 
circumspiciendo hincinde in platea, vel inspiciendo domos et 
salutando matronas. Item in opido missi non commedemus 
parum vel multum in domibus, ad quas venimus sine licencia 
eius, qui preest, nec potabimus ultra semel. Quod si sine 
offensa amicorum nostrorum non possemus [fol. 46>] hoc pro 
tempore observare, tunc postea debemus super hoc a rectore 
licenciam postulare. Item exire in plateam vel stare in porta 
ad plateam non debemus, exceptis quibus hoc ex officio in- 
dulgetur causa necessitatis. Ceterum cavenda est fratribus 
decepcio dyabolica, qua quidam mundum relinquentes iterum 
sub specie bona revertuntur corde in Egyptum, occasionem 
frequentis exitus ad domos vel parentum vel consanguineorum 
sibi facientes, curam domus parentum ex proprio consilio 
assumendo, gaudentes et dolentes cum eis in mundanis, non- 
numquam ut veri mundani. Isti sunt similes litori salsi maris 
a fructu alieni, quia cor -eorum et tota conversacio alienantur 
a vero proposito sui profectus et mundo conformantur. Amen. 
[fol. 47] 

Qui tarde venerit ad legendum “Benedicite’ ad mensam, 
faciat veniam suam ibidem, postquam lectum est, osculando 
terram. Qui venerit ad matutinas et ad omnes alias horas, 
postquam inceptum fuerit, faciat ibidem veniam osculando ter- 
ram. Et qui venerit ad matutinas post “Venite” et ad minores 
horas post ympnum et ad vesperas et completorium post primum 
psalmum, faciet ibidem veniam osculando terram, et post 
“Benedicite” in refectorio eciam petens veniam dicat culpam 
suam osculando similiter terram. Qui ex toto non venerit ad 
aliquam horarum, nisi licencia habuerit, petens veniam dicet 


474 APPENDIX 


culpam suam post lectum “Benedicite’. Qui correptus vel 
ammonitus se excusaverit, infra “Benedicite’ iacebit pronus in 
terra super genua et cubitos confitendo culpam eciam addendo 
quociens hoc fecerit. Qui dormierit apud candelam, petet 
veniam cum candela, postquam “Benedicite’ fuerit lectum, 
sedendo in igenibus, donec iuwbeatur surgere per rectorem, si 
presens est. Si vero rector non affuerit, cum lector lectionem 
inchoaverit, surgat. Qui annichilaverit ultra valorem oert- 
kini[?], similiter faciet tenendo partem rei annichilate, si 
commodo potest. Qui fratrem verbo vel facto offenderit, petet 
veniam, ipso die coram eo flexis genibus et. eciam coram hiis, 
quibus presentibus hoc fecit [fol. 47%] vel partem anfore ad 
hoc ibidem reservate. Qui correptus fuerit a rectore in presencia 
fratrum, statim genua flectet, donec iubeatur surgere, osculando 
terram. Qui non paraverit lectum ante octavam horam, 
osculabitur terram post ‘“Benedicite’”. Qui infra quindenam non 
merit pro defectibus, petet veniam in collacione, postquam 
lectus est punctus. Qui notabiliter male ~cantaverit, vel alias 
confusiones fecerit in ridendo vel similibus precipue in 
ecclesia, petet veniam post “Benedicite’, confitendo culpam. 
Qui post ammonicionem statim defectum non emendaverit, 
scilicet ammonitus tenere silencium vel simile quid, petet veniam 
super genua et cubitos confitendo eciam culpam suam. Qui 
inobediens fuerit officiantibus in causis sibi attinentibus, petet 
veniam confitendo culpam post “Benedicite”’. Qui sine causa 
et licencia prehabita subtraxerit se a laboribus communibus, 
vel nimis tarde advenerit, petet eciam veniam post “Benedicite”, 
confitendo culpam. Qui cum alio litigaverit vel excesserit in 
verbis duris, petet veniam confitendo culpam et commedet 
super terram et hoc faciet cum scitu rectoris. Qui tempus suum 
male expenderit sive laboris sive aliud, dicet culpam suam post 
“Benedicite”’, subinferendo quomodo et quantum temporis ex- 
penderit. [fol. 484] Qui inobediens fuerit rectori, vel qui se ei 
pertinater42 opposuerit, petet veniam confitendo culpam et 
osculando fratrum pedes commedet super terram. Qui non 
officians sine licencia rectoris vel, si ille non affuerit, procurato- 
ris, exierit domum, faciet similiter, ut predictum est. Qui ex 
negligencia habuerit scolares sive iuvenes apud se clausis ianuis, 
unum aut plures, dicet culpam suam postquam “Benedicite” 
est lectum. Qui sepius in hoc excesserit aut longas moras sic 
cum ipsis fecerit, huius penitencia stabit ad arbitrium rectoris*?. 
Qui in aliis notabilibus et scandulosis casibus excesserit, huius 
penitencia pendet eciam ad arbitrium rectoris. Has penitencias 
et eis similes mon facient fratres in festis communionis sed 
proximo sequentibus, nisi jalicui rector aaliter innuerit. Qui 
eciam in predictis et similibus veniis confitetur suam culpam, 
tam alta voce dicet dicenda, ut ab omnibus possit faciliter 
peu cum humilitate cordis et magno proposito se emendandi. 
men, 





NOTES TO APPENDIX C 


1. Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretalium Greg. IX, Lib. ITI, 
tits; cap.’ 9. ; 
For Membra. 

The last seven words were struck out later. 

The last two words were struck out later. 

This sentence was struck out later. 

On the margin was added: Item festivis diebus consue- 
vimus eciam omnes audire primam missam. 

7. II Thessalonians III, 8. 

8. The word duabus was written later above the word tribus. 

9. September 14. 

10. This whole sentence was inserted. written on the lower 
margin, but later struck out. 

11. Should read: Bonus, nisi correptus fuerit, perit. 

12. Matthew XVIII, 15. 

13. The last ten words were inserted, written on the left 
margin, but the last six words were struck out later. 

14. The last fifteen words were struck out later. 

15. Vel quattuor was struck out later. 

16. The last twelve words were struck out later. 

17. Ad femoralia was struck out later. 

18. The last two words were struck out later. 

19. The last eight words were struck out later. 

20. For prompta. 

21. For competentem. 

22. For candelabra. 

23. This sentence was inserted, written on the lower margin, 
but struck out later. 

2a mundiuam |... «ks usque sacerdocium was added on 
the lower margin, and struck out later. 

25. These two syllables were struck out later. 

26. The last five words were inserted on the right margin. 

27. There is a note on the lower margin which reads: Item 
de acceptacione laicorum quere in fine libri infra. 

28. The word summa was written on the margin. 


475 


OVOES Es Ge neo 


476 NOTES 


20... item: jad‘ .videte 9.0.5. devotam deserendo was added 
on the lower margin of fol. 342 and the upper margin of fol. 34». 

30. For alios. 

31. The last twelve words were added on the right margin. 


32. Apostolus tuus Paulus was changed later into: tuus levita © 


Laurencius. 

33. Pauli was changed later into Iheronimi. The house ap- 
pears therefore to have been dedicated originally to the Apostle 
Paul. All other sources are silent on this point, merely stating 
that Jeromie was the patron. This passage gives additional 
evidence that here we have to do with the original constitution 
of the house at Deventer. 

34. For adversitatibus. 

35. For commoda. 

36. This sentence was added on the upper margin and struck 
out later. 

37. This whole sentence was underlined. 

38. For matutinas. 

39. For vigilias. 

40. This sentence was added on the upper margin. 

41. The last three words were added later, inserted above 
Delf. 

42. For pertinaciter. 

43. The last two lines were added at the bottom of the page. 


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Abhandlungen der kon. bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaf- 
ten, III Cl., vol. XXI, Munich 1894, pp. 1-64. 

Puyol, P. E., L’Auteur du livre de Imitatione Christi, 2 vols., 
Paris 1899-1900. 

Pijper, F., Een nonnenklooster onder den invloed van Windes- 
heim, in: Ned. Arch. voor kerkgesch., vol. V (1895), pp. 
229-249. 

ee eee ae De invloed van de broeders des Gemeenen Levens 
op de schoolstichting van Calvijn, in: Kerkhistorische op- 
stellen van het gezelschap S. S. S., The Hague 1914, pp. 
115-120. 

Radewijns, F., Omnes inquit artes. See: Unpubl. sources, under 
Deventer. 

J ype ek. Tractatulus de spiritualibus exercitiis, in: Vregt, 
J. F., Eenige ascetische tractaten, pp. 383-427. 

Reichling, D., Ortwin Gratius; sein Leben und Werken; eine 
Ehrenrettung, Heiligenstadt 1884. 


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Freiburg i. Br. 1880. 
Biot coats tons Die Reform der Domschule zu Miinster im Jahre 


1500, Berlin 1900. 


492 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


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Renan, E., L’Auteur de 1|’Imitation de Jésus-Christ, in: Etudes 
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Renaudet, A., Erasme, sa vie et son oeuvre jusqu’en I517 
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A Ie ere eee Jean Standonk, un Réformateur Catholique avant 
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Pete SN Préréforme et Humanisme a Paris (1494-1517), 
Paris 1916. 

Richter, J. H., Geschichte des Augustinerklosters Frenswegen in 
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Rhijn, M. van, Wessel Gansfort, The Hague 1917. 

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Rootselaar, W. F. N., Amersfoort, geschiedkundige bijzonder- 
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Scheel, O., Martin Luther. Vom Katholizismus zur Reforma- 
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Schevichaven, H. D. J. van, Oud-Nijmegens kerken, kloosters, 
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1900. 

Schmidt, Ch., Histoire littéraire de l’Alsace a la fin du XVe et 
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Schoengen, M., Die Schule von Zwolle von ihren Anfangen bis 
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: 
a 
: 
. 


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Se ee a ee Jacobus Traiecti alias de Voecht narratio de in- 


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Slee, J. C. van, Het necrologium en cartularium van het convent 
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494 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


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Velthuijsen, B. P., Twee tot nog toe onbekende conventen der 
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Vregt, J. F., Eenige ascetische tractaten, afkomstig van de 
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het aartsbisdom Utrecht, vol. X, Utrecht 1882, pp. 321-498. 


Wace, H., and Buchheim, C. A., First principles of the Re-~ 


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Waterton, E., Thomas a Kempis and the Imitation of Christ, 
London 1883. 

Watrigant, P. H., La genése des Exercitia spiritualia, Amiens 
1897. 

Weiss, N., Le premier traité protestant en langue francaise: La 
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63-79. 

Wiese, J., Der Padagoge Alexander Hegius und seine Schiler, 
Berlin 1892. 
Whitney, J. P., Erasmus, in: English historical review, vol. 

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Wolters, A., Reformationsgeschichte der Stadt Wesel, Bonn 
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Wistenhoff, D. J. M., “Florentii parvum et simplex exercitium”, 
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transferre in vulgare. See: Unpubl. sources, under Nurem- 

berg. 


DS ete 


a 


IN DEX 


- 


Acquoy, 84, 155. 

Adrian, Floriszoon, Pope Adri- 
an VI, 247. 

Adwert, 202, 203, 227. 

Aelius, 341. 

Agnes, Mount St., 138, 168, 176, 
189, 202, 203, 207, 25I, 339. 
Agnietenberg, or Mount St. 

Agnes, 171, 194, 236. 
Agricola, Rudolph, 40, 126-128, 
203, 204, 228, 241. 
Ahaus, Henry of, 111. - 
Ailly, Cardinal Pierre d’, 
1O7= 200,. 231,311. 
Alanus, 203. | 
Alexander VI, Pope, 247. 
Ambrose, Church Father, 164, 
206, 210, 248. 
Amilius van Buren, 99, 173, 175. 
Anna of Brittany, 247. 
Anrich, 287. 
Anselm, 17,301, 
Anthony, 226. 
Apuleius, 17. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 17, 19, 53, 67, 
68, 77, 164, 160, 181, 206, 233, 
235, 295, 301, 319. 
Aristotle, 17, 68, 172, 

295, 338. 
Arius, 234. 
Arsenius, 78. 
Ascensius, Badius, 61, 264, 265, 
279. 


IOI, 


206-208, 


495 


Assisi, Francis of, 3, 17. 

Athanasius, 206. 

Augustine, II, 15, 17, 19, 46, 70, 
73, 77, 86, 143, 164, 200, 206, 


207, 214, 225, 220, 230, 234, 
Zier eivaln 
Aurelius, Cornelius Gerard of 


Gouda, 253, 254. 


Badius, see Ascensius. 
Baduelle, 342. 

Bailly, 252. 

Balthasar, 113. 

Barrowists, 348. 
Bartholomew, 30, 31, 46, 65. 
Basil, 191. 

Basselen, Heylwig van der, 9. 
Becker, 177, 182. 

Béda, 247, 252, 2709. 

Bede, 17, 68. 

Beiaard, 183. 

Beek, Egbert ter, 102-103. 


Benedictine, monastic order, 
144, 145, 147. 

Bergen, Henry of, 247. 

Bernard, 3, 17, 158, 164, 172, 


200, 206, 207, 338. 
Berner, Lubbert, 173. 
Bessarion, 197. 
Bethlehem, 155, 178-179. 
Biel, Gabriel, 221, 312. 
Blankenheim, Frederick van, 90, 
IOT. 


496 INDEX 


Boddiken, 148. 
Bodingen, 142, 178. 
Bomer, 132. 
Boethuis, 134. 


Boheme, 167. 
Bonaventura, 17, 52, 164, 206, 
267. 


Boniface IX, Pope, 152, 

Bonnus, 341. 

Bossche, Lubbert ten, 173, 174, 

' 184, 189. ‘ 

Bourgeois, 241. 

Bredenbach, 341. 

Briconnet, 245. 

Brinckerinck, John, 72, 98, 136, 
137 1.TA0,, TOG, CIST, eB, 23); 
307. 

Brito, Hugutio, 127. 

Bronopia, 142, 144. 

Brugman, 113. 

Brune, 175. 

Brunfels, Otto, 289. 

Bruno, Giordano, 262, 

Bucer, Martin, 40, 276, 285, 328, 
332, 326-337, 342, 345, 347, 349. 

Bur, Pierre de, 265. 

Bure, Idelette de, 2098. 

Burrage, 345. 

Bursfeld, 144-145, 147. 

Busch, John, 39, 47, 93, 97, 127, 
137, 142-144, 148, 179, 180, 225. 

Busche, Herman von dem, 227. 

Butzbach, 111, 128, 225, 231. 


Calcar, Gerard, 91, 105, 142; Al- 
bert Paep of, 108, 203; Henry 
Of, 10: 

Calvin, John, 3, 40, 92, 192, 157, 
218, 279, 283, 205, 297, 303, 
332, 334, 336, 342, 348, 349. 

Cassianus, 17, 54, 160, 164. 


— 


Carthusians, monastic 


181. 

Cato 419 

Cele) John; -3,.:5).:12,»27,) 20ee0r5 
72, 87, 103, 122, 124-125, 127, 
133) (134, (135, 142, «1012 218; 
224, 250, 275, 204, 205, 307, 
308, 336, 339. 

Charlemagne, 6. 

Charles VIII, king of France, 
254. 

Chateau-Landon, 252. 

Chrysostom, 17, 73, 75, 200. 

Cicero,» 17. 127, -206,4220. 

Cisneros, Garcia of, 67, 271, 273. 


order, 


_Cistercians, 47, 144, 180, 181. 


Clerée, 241, 248, 252. 

Climacus, 17. 

Cluny, 246. 

Clus, 144. 

Codex, MOolk, 178; Osnabrugen- 
sis, 179; Thevenot, 179, 

Colet, 228, 295. 

Concordantia Catholica, 262. 

Cordier, 291. 

Council of Constance, 146, 170, 
181. 

Cruise, Sir Francis, 177. 

Crul, Henry, r4o. 

Cues, Nicholas of, 262; see un- 
der Cusa. 

Cusa, Nicholas, 


Cardinal, 143, 
144, 230, 262, 263, 278, 303, 
340. 
Cyprian, 17. 


Cysoing, 254, 255. 


Dalen, John van, 125. 
Damiani, Peter of, 17. 
Dayken Dyerkens, 148, 150, 
Dederoth, 144. 





INDEX 407 


Demosthenes, 17, 206. 
Dickmann, 341. 
Diepenveen, 89, 139, 
150-152, 156, 262, 344. 
Dier of Muiden, Rudolph, 82, 
300. 
Dionysius, 17. 
Dominicans, 63, 248. 
Dou, Gysbert, 307. 
Doumergue, 276-278. 
Dorotheus, 75. 
Dringenberg, Louis, 40, 89, 92, 
BSt,99 32, 227, 275, 204," 287: 
Drenen, Reynold of, go. 
Dunen, Bye van, 61, 


144-148, 


= 


Eckhardt, 76, 341. 

EKemsteyn, 85, 87, 138, 139, 141. 

Egidius, 68. 

Emery, John, 254. 

Erasmus, 3, 5, 72, 103, 104, 141, 
205, 221, 226-228, 230, 233-235, 
247, 253, 285, 288, 294, 295, 
327, 342, 349. 

Eugene IV, Pope, 230. 

Eusebius, 17. 

Eza, Everard of, 52, 53, 140. 


Faber, Conrad, 333. 

Fabricius, 17. 

Farel, 279. 

Farrago, 127, 200, 220. 

Fernand, brothers, 265, 

Ficinus, 200. 

Florentius, House of, 60, 167, 
T7 ia 175. B00. 

Foppens, Henry of Gouda, 80, 

_ 90. 

Francis, rule of St., 114, 194. 

Franciscans, 248. 

Frenswegen, 132, 138-140, 145. 


Froben, 205. 


Gaesdonck, Codex of, 178, 182. 

Gaguin, 265, 266. 

Galen, Lambert van, 306. 

Gansfort, Wessel, 191-235, 3, 5, 
40, 89, 126, 170, 256, 264, 278, 
282, 283, 287, 308, 316, 319-326, 
3207" (332; °333; 335, 337,349; 
342, 347, 349. 

Gebweiler, Jerome, 288, 

Gellius, Aulus, 206. 

Gerlach Peters, 3, 153, 156, 158, 
159, 164, 168. 

Geneviéve, Ste., 152, 238, 244. 

Gerson, 158, 181, 186, 107, 206, 
237) 

Gersoncito, 269. 

Gersonico, 278. 

Godet, 249. 

Goedman, John, 307. 

Goes, Hugo van der, 155. 

Goussard, 252. 

Gratius, Ortwin, 129. 

Graville, Louis Malet de, Ad- 
miral of France, 244, 248, 252, 

Gregory, 17, 73, 257: 

Grisar, 309. 

Groenendaal, 11, 12, 39, 84, 85, 
130, 143. 

Gronde, John van den, 42, 86, 
87. 

Groote, Gerard, 4, 5, 9-40, 52, 
53, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 72, 
83, 84, 85, 87, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 
98, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 


100, , 114,’ 120, 122, ¥23, "124, 
127, 132, 133, 135, 138, 139, 
140, I4I, 145, 146, 149, 150, 
151, 152, 156, 158, 159, 160, 
161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 


498 

169, 176, 179, 180, 182, 184, 
190, 193, 195, 196, 200, 202, 
207....205, 1200, 211,214, 216; 
BIZ. © 21S F20)1221,; 92225227; 
B28, 7220; ) 230, 231}: 230, 3236; 
241 250, 255, 250, 263, -266, 
274, 283, 203, 204, 207, 301, 
304, 308, 3090, 312, 319, 321, 
326, 333, 334, 336, 338. 


Grooten, Styne des, 148-150. 


Hacqueville, Nicholas of, 
254, 255, 260, 340. 

Hagen, Paul, 181-182. 

Hamilton, 344. 

Hegius, Alexander, 40, 72, 80, 
92, 103, 123-129, 132-134, 203- 
207, 227, 250, 205, 340. 

Hemerken, Thomas a Kempis, 
166. 

Henso, Theodore, 107. 

Herod, 247, 

Herxen, Theodore, 104-108, 121. 

Hippocrates, 17. 

Hirsche, 155, 159. 

Hoeck, Jacob, 254. 

Hoen, Cornelius, 218, 219, 276, 
284, 308, 332, 335, 342, 345. 

Homer, 206, 295. 

Horlenius, 134. 

Horologium, 26, 301. 

Hove, Berthold ten, 83, 86. 

Hoxter, John of, 60, 85. 

Hugo of St. Victor, 75, 206. 

FES ET E7 eon, oe 


252, 


Ignatius, see Loyola. 
Isidor, 17. 

Jansdal, St., 155. 
Jansenists, 3. ; 


INDEX 


Januensis, 127. 

Jarges, Oda, 192. 

Jerome, 17, 73, 164, 206, 229 

Jesuits, 92, 268, 272-275, 
345. 

Johanneshof, 183. 

Josephus, 71. 

Juvenal, 17. 


298, 


Kemener, Timan, 132, 133. 

Kempis, Thomas a, 2, 5, 9, II, 
13, 23, 36, 38, 40, 47, 50, 51, 52, 
53, 62, 67, 81, 86, 149, 156, 166, — 
168, 176, 179-189, 194, 195, 197, 


202,-*207; 221,223, °220/eenn. 
305, 315, 334, 344. : 

Ketel, John, 64, 134, 151, 171, 
175, 176, 184, 185. 


Keynkamp, William, 85. 
Kirchheim, Codex, 182. 
Knod, 131. 
Koetken, Reynier, 251-253. 
Koran, 206. 

Kithler, 151. 


Lang, 247. 

Langen, Rudolph von, 89, 132 
203; 227. is 

Lebwin, St., Church of, 15, 85, 
120-2932 7 107 

Lefevre, James of Etaples, 260, 
264, 265, 276, 279, 309, 337. 

Leibnitz, 262. 

Liefard, 107. 

Listrius, 227. 

Livry, 254, 255, 261. 

Livinius, of Middelburg, 124. 

Loeder, Henry, 141. 

Lollards, 48. 

Lombard, Peter, 338. 

Loth, 177: a 


,’ 


~ 








INDEX 


Loyola, Ignatius, 3, 40, 79, 80, 
157, 268, 260, 272, 274, 208, 
303, 397, 349. 

Lubberts, John, 122. 

Lucan, 17. 

Ludingakerke, 139, 142. 

Luther, Martin, 3, 30, 40, 134, 
ES7mLOS.) LOT 23 el7. 210, 
220 a 2l;- 2245) 2255326, 2220, 
230, 232-235, 257, 274, 307, 315, 
SIG5.0325,. 330541 342; 1340" 

yraget 7. 


Maat, Aleid ter, 148, 150. 

Maillard, Oliver, 239, 241. 

Malou, 182. 

Mande, Henry, 153, 182. 

Manresa, 268, 271. 

Marche, La, 279. 

Marienborn, 137, 138. 

Mariendaal, 85. 

Martin V, Pope, 230. 

Martin, St., Church of, 133. 

Master Gerard, House of, 42, 
87, 145. 

Mathesius, 310. 

Mauburn, same as Mombaer, 3, 
80. 

Maximus, Valerius, 17, 206. 

Medici, Lorenzo de’, 200. 

Medulla, 127. 

Melanchton, 92, 197, 
227, 309, 319, 323., 

Melun, St. Savior. of, 254. 

Meynoldus of Windesheim, go, 
or. 

Michael, Convent of, 183. 

Minden, John von, 144, 145, 147. 

Miraeus, 275. 

Moller, 340. 

Mombaer, John, 3, 221, 227, 230, 


200, 204, 


499 


236, 251, 252, 254, 255, 259, 
264, 267, 269, 271, 274, 278. 

Monheim, 341. 

Monnikhuizen, 11, 12, 43, 44, 92, 
303. 

Montanus, Jacob, 134. 

Montserrat, 267, 269. 

Montaigu, 247-254, 260, 272, 279, 
283, 208, 338, 349. 

Motley, 338. 

Mount St. Agnes, see Agnes. 

Mille, 341. 

Murmellius, John, 40, 72, 89, 92, 
133-134, 302, 300, 340, 

Museum, British, 178. 


Nepos, 17. 

Neuwerk, Chapter of, 142-144. 
New Light, 138. 

Nicholas V, Pope, 143. 
Notre-Dame, 250. 
Noviomagensis, Codex, 179. 


Occam, 196, 206. 
Oecolampadius, 276, 284, 333. 
Oostendorp, John, 204, 227. 
Origen, 206. 


Paep, Albert; see Calcar. 

Paget, John, 346, 

Parlement, 253. 

Pering, 134. 

Petri, Adam, 333): 347- 

Pilate, 187. 

Plato, 17, 23, 68, 206-208, 210, 
295, 301. i: 

Pliny; 17,°205: 

Plutarch, 206. 

Pontian, 190. 

Poulain, 246. 

Poorten, John ter, 63. 


300 INDEX or 


Premonstratensian Order, 144. 
Procul, 206. 

Ptolemy, 295. 

Puyol, 177. 

Pythagoras, 70. 


Quentin, John, 240, 241. 


Rabineus, 216. 

Radewijns, Florentius, 15, 43, 
44, 45, 47-48, 49-50, 60, 61, 64, 
65, 66, 67, 72, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 
86, 91, 93, 98, 99, 100, I10, 122, 
136, 137, 140, 149, 153, 154, 156, 
158, 160, 161, 162, 164, 166, 
PO7Us. FOG, 100,017 1-79 73,,0474, 
175,. 176, 180, 182, 184, -180, 
190, 193, 194, 220, 255, 272, 
305, 315, 326. 

Raulin, John, 241, 246, 254. 

Reeden, Fije van, 146. 

Rees, Henry van, 203, 227. 

Rély, John de, 252. 

Rembert, 145. 

Renan, 177. 

Renaudet, 264, 338, 330. 

Reuchlin, 197, 

Rhenanus, Beatus, 40, 340. 

Rijd, Herman, 179. 

Robinson, 345. 

Rode, Hinne, 219, 247, 284, 286, 
332. 

Rooklooster, 155. 

Roolf, Codex, 179. 

Roussel, Gerard, 280. 

Ruerinck, Wychmannus, 90. 

Rufus, Mutian, 128, 227, 341. 

Runen, Zwedera van, 60, I10. 

Ruysbroeck, John, 11, 12, 17, 18, 
39, 84, 92, 120, 207, 264, 278. 


Sabellius, 234. 

Sacravallis, 1309. 

Sagarus, 322, 344. 

Sallust, 127. 

Samson, 19. 

Sapidus, 340. 

Satan, 34. 

Saulay, John, 241. 

Saxons, 84, 97. 

Sarvarvilla, William de, 37. 

Scadde, Gerard; see Calcar. 

Scheve, 341. 

Scherping, 344. 

Schmidt, Charles, 131. 

Schoengen, 98, 109, 

Scotus, 319. 

Scutken, 86. 

Seneca, 17, 23, 68, 172, 206, 228, 
301. 

Sens, council of, 242. 

Sion, 139, 142. 

Sixtus IV, Pope, 199. 

Socrates, 17, 23, 57. 

Solomon, 100. 

Sonsbeke, 112. 

Sorbonne, 339. 

Spitzen, 179, 182. 

Standonck, John, 236-252, 253, 
254, 260, 261, 274, 276, 338, 
339, 340. 

Stuerman, 17, 83, 251. 

Sturm, John, 92, 124, 192, 284, 
291, 295, 207, 303, 336. 

Suetonius, 17. 

Silte, 142. 

Suso, 17. 


Talmud, 206. 
Tauler, 341. 
Themistius, 206. 


Me 
—_—— 


,. 


INDEX 501 


Theophrastus, 17, 206. 
Tilley, 265. 

Timaeus, 68. 

Tolensis, 170. 

Toorn, Godfried, 100-101. 
Torrentinus, 204, 227, 
Truyen, St., 147. 
Tulichius, 341. 


Ulfilas, 74. 

Ullmann, 321. 

Uranius, 341. 

Urban VI, Pope, 37, 38. 
Ursula, St., 344. 


Valerius, see Maximus. 

Vegetius, 17. 

Vianen, James of, 175; William 
“of, 64. 

Victor, St., monastery, 85, 86, 
252-254, 261. 

Vireil, 17; 127, 206; 205. 

Voecht, Jacob, of Utrecht, 90. 

Vornken, William, 38, 302. 

Vos, John, of Heusden, 19, 38, 
85, 86, 98, 100, 104, 136, 141, 
145, 152, 154, 168. 

Vree, Van, Bishop, 182. 

Vrije, Anton, 129. 

Vroede, William, 122. 


Warnet, Thomas, 247, 252. 
Watrigant, 267. 
Wermbold, 307. 


Wevelinkhoven, Frederick van, 
go. 

Wijnbergen, Albert, 86. 

Wilde, Henry, 86, 137, 152. 

Wilsen, Henry of, 83, 86, 137. 

Wimpheling, 40, 284, 287, 309, 
340. 

Windesheim, 136-157, 38, 41, 47, 
82-86, 89-91, IOI, 102, 104, 105, 
EIT, 21078207) 221 5 2e5e een: 
225 230m 23 1ue230Nn 26h eas 
254, 301, 344. 

Wittecoep, Jacob, 90. 

Wolfsgruber, 177. 

Wycliff, 117, 224, 225, 345. 


Xanones, 268. 


Yssel, I-5, 12, 43, 44, 58, 64, IOI, 


102.) EJ0; -3i4 048200 130, 1 F35, 
DATs S 1 SS et SO) a LOZ eel 75 
180, 196, 200, 202, 264, 260, 
208, 339. 


Zerbolt, Gerard, of Zutphen, 66- 


82, 3, 64, 65, 80, 96, 98, 108, 
146, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162, 
175, 176, 180, 189, 190, 194, 
200) 214, 2275. s2100 220, 2344 
2367 250, 8200, 6207.) 27 trees a. 
278, 204, 300, 310, 315, 326, 
337. 


Zwingli, Huldrich, 40, 157, 227, 
285, 303, 300, 332, 336, 342, 
348, 340. 





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